crouching with the muscular body twisting sharply and the head turned to one side, the face with a menacing expression with the mouth open, the lips curling back in a snarl, and the eyes wide, a pair of ridged horns pressing against the neck, tufts of fur covering the body and sweeping outward from the elbows, a pair of feathered wings tucked against the torso, wood stand (2). 

Note: The present chimera-form weight has a richly textured coat and an animated expression that characterizes cast-bronze animal-form figures in the Han to Six Dynasties period. Bronze weights of this type include a pair in the collection of the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco (coll. nos B60B808 and B60B821); one from the Schoenlicht Collection and another from the Stoclet Collection, both illustrated in H. F. E. Visser, Asiatic Art, New York, 1952, pl. 68; and one from the collection of Mr. and Mrs. Eugene Bernat exhibited in Art of the Six Dynasties, China Institute, New York, 1975, cat. no. 39.

Sotheby's. Important Chinese Art, New York, 17 march 2021