Lot 1009. A rare bronze 'bixie' weight, Han dynasty (206 BC-AD 220); 2¾ in. (7.1 cm.) diam. Estimate USD 20,000 - USD 30,000. Price realised USD 27,500. © Christie's Images Ltd 2019

The heavy, circular mat weight is well cast on top in openwork with three winged, free-standing bixie striding around a central dome below a mountain peak, their heads turned outward and their jaws open, with traces of gilding remaining, fitted wood box, wood stand.

Provenance: Acquired in Japan, late 1990s.

Literature: Kandai no Bijitsu (Art of the Han Dynasty), Osaka Municipal Museum, 1974, p. 39, no. 2-192.

Exhibited: Osaka Municipal Museum, Kandai no Bijutsu, Japan, 27 April - 26 May 1974, no. 2-192.

Note: Weights of this type are believed to have been used to hold down the corners of mats used for seating, and would have been made in sets of four. A similar bronze weight in the Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Harvard University Art Museums, is illustrated by Michelle C. Wang et al. in A Bronze Menagerie: Mat Weights of Early China, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston, 2006, p. 107, no. 11, where it is dated Han dynasty, and where the author discusses the relationship of mountains and animals during the Han period. Another similar weight is illustrated in Ancient Chinese Arts in the Idemitsu Collection, 1989, no. 239, and one of a pair from the collection of the Korean Government is illustrated in the catalogue of the International Exhibition of Chinese Art, London, 1935-36, no. 421. One from the David-Weill Collection was sold at Sotheby's London, 29 February 1972, lot 52, and another from the collection of S.E. Monsieur Jean Daridan, 11 December 1979, lot 50.

Christie's. Fine Chinese Ceramics and Works of Art, New York, 18 - 19 September 2014