Lot 809. A gold 'tiger and deer' plaque, 5th - 3rd century BC. Length 3 3/4  in., 9.5 cm. Estimate 10,000 — 15,000 USD. Lot sold 17,500 USD. Courtesy Sotheby's.

the gold sheet worked in repoussé with a tiger grasping a deer in its jaws, the tiger standing foursquare, its stripes hammered in high relief and the fur neatly incised, the deer suspended by its neck, the body hanging limp and framed by the side and lower borders of the plaque, the spaces between the animals' limbs cut away.

Provenance: Collection of Harry Geoffrey Beasley (1881-1939).
Collection of Alfred William Cowperthwaite (1890-1964), acquired circa 1939, and thence by descent.

Note: A number of late Warring States period gold openwork and repoussé plaques featuring a tiger and its prey have been excavated, including one unearthed at Tianzi, Liangchengdun County, Inner Mongolia, and now in the collection of the Inner Mongolia Museum, Huhehaote, published in Zhongguo meishu quanji: Gongyi meishu bian 5, Qingtongqi, xia [Complete Series on Chinese Art: Arts and Crafts, vol. 5, Bronzes, Pt. 2], Beijing, 1986, pl. 164; and another of the same date and in the same collection, published in Zhang Jingming Zhongguo beifang caoyuan gudai jinyinqi [Ancient Gold and Silver Works from China's Northern Steppe], Beijing, 2005, pl. 26. See also a contemporaneous bronze example from the A. Stoclet Collection, Brussels, published in Sueji Umehara, Shina-kodo seikwa / Selected Relics of Ancient Chinese Bronzes from Collections in Europe and America, vol. 2, Osaka, 1933, pl. 127a.

Harry Geoffrey Beasley was a Fellow of the Royal Anthropological Institute (England) and founded the Cranmore Ethnographical Museum. 

Sotheby's. Important Chinese Art, 11 september 2019