each cast as an ox head rendered with a pair of tapering, spiralled horns above bulging eyes, pierced with an aperture behind and set against a crescent-shaped back, all above a flattened pierced shaft, wood stand.

Literature: The Raymond A. Bidwell Collection of Chinese Bronzes and Ceramics, Museum of Fine Arts, Springfield, Massachusetts, 1965, pp. 42-43.

Note: It is rare to find a pair of bronze linchpins of this high quality, preserved in such good condition. See a pair of linchpins in the collection of the Idemitsu Museum of Art, Tokyo, illustrated together with their axle caps in Ancient Chinese Arts in the Idemitsu Collection, Tokyo, 1989, pl. 99, and one in the British Museum, London, illustrated in William Watson, Handbook of the Collections of Early Chinese Antiquities, London, 1962, pl. 36.