A large gilt-bronze mask, Northern Wei / Northern Qi dynasty

J.J. Lally & Co., New York, 28th January 2005.

Glaring out as an ancient icon of power and protection, this magnificent mask is one of the largest of its type ever recorded. Cast in a range of sizes and styles from the early Shang period onwards, fearsome animal masks of this type (known as taotie) were used to adorn the ritual vessels, coffins and doors of noble tombs and temples throughout China’s Bronze Age. While earlier Shang taotie masks were often rendered in smaller and more blocky geometric forms, advancements in bronze casting around the turn of the first millennium – particularly the embrace of loss-wax casting – allowed artisans to create ever more elaborate and expressive examples. Rendered with spiralling vegetal openwork above a grand zoomorphic face and pointed tusks, the present mask typifies the fine craftsmanship of this later period. The addition of gilding, still glowing across much of the piece after almost two millennia of stewardship, only further emphasizes the symbolic power of this mask – as a symbol of the owner’s might, opulence, and cultural capital.

Small pinholes and signs of a missing ‘beak’ section on the present mask indicate that it was likely once fastened to some monumental vessel, on which it supported a ring handle. Compare a related pair of smaller ungilded masks with fleur-de-lis openwork, together with ring handles, included in Ruth Spelman, The Arts of China, C. W. Post Art Gallery, New York, 1977, cat. no. 44, and sold in these rooms, 2nd April 1979, lot 59; a smaller ungilded Northern Wei mask with a squatting figure amidst the openwork, exhibited in The collects ion of Chinese Art: Special Exhibition. ‘Run Through 10 Years’, Senshutey, Tokyo, 2006, cat. no. 27, sold at Christie’s New York, 19th and 20th September 2013, lot 1458; and a gilded example with openwork birds, from the collects ion of Alfred Schoenlicht, now preserved in the Idemitsu Museum of Arts, illustrated in Ancient Chinese Arts in the Idemitsu collects ion, Osaka, 1986, pl. 260.