modeled standing before a flame-shaped mandorla on a splayed lotus base above a four-legged plinth, the plinth chased with a grid pattern with each unit enclosing a small circle, the figure adorned in long flowing robes, the right hand held against the chest, the left lowered, the hair swept up into a topknot framed by a circular halo with radiating lotus petals on the mandorla, the mandorla further decorated with a border of lotus petals and swirling flames extending up to the pointed tip, the reverse incised with a seated Buddha in a shrine, all above a dedicatory inscription dated to the fourth year of the Zhengshi period, corresponding to 507. 

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