A DOCUMENTED AND INSCRIBED BRONZE 'DRAGON IN CLOUD' MIRROR Ming dynasty, dated by inscription to...

A DOCUMENTED AND INSCRIBED BRONZE 'DRAGON IN CLOUD' MIRROR
Ming dynasty, dated by inscription to the 22nd year of Hongwu period (1389)
Well-cast with a five-claw dragon flying through clouds over cresting waves, a cartouche to the left with a dated inscription written in seal script, the knob in the shape of a three-peak mountain, all enclosed by a plain raised border, the mirror side flat and eroded, the bronze with dark green and brown patination throughout.
4 3/8in (11.4cm) diam
Footnotes:
明 《洪武廿二年正月日造》《北澗》款 雲龍紋銅鏡

Provenance:
Sotheby's, London, 13 June 2003, lot 640 (part lot)

來源：
倫敦蘇富比，2003年6月13日，拍品編號640 (多件拍品之一)

Bronze mirror of this design and cast with a Hongwu 22nd year date is well-known, but it is very rare to see one cast with the inscription bei jian, which may be translated as 'northern mountain stream.'

Compare the very similar bronze mirror in the collection of the Palace Museum, Beijing, illustrated by Geng Baochang in Ming Qing ciqi jianding (Connoisseurship of Ming and Qing Porcelains), Beijing, 1993, p. 11, no. 10, where the author uses the dragon on the mirror as a dated comparable for blue and white porcelains of the same period.

Compare also the very similar mirror in the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, illustrated on the museum's website, accession number 12.816. Two other mirrors of this design in the collection of the National Palace Museum, Taipei, are illustrated in Gugong tongqi tulu (Illustrated Catalogue of Bronzes in the Palace Museum Collection), Taipei, 1958.