A SILVER 'MAKARA' PENDANT SONG - YUAN DYNASTY
formed from two teardrop-shaped sheets of silver joined back-to-back, each sheet worked in repoussé with a pair of makara diving towards one another in pursuit of a 'flaming pearl' at the center of the composition, each makara with an animated dragon face characterized by a long upturned snout, beady eyes, and short horns, the fish-form body with outstretched fins and a long scaly torso sweeping upward and flicking the broadly fanning tail, traces of gilt on one side, the pointed tip of the pendant pierced
Height 2 7/8 in., 7.3 cm
Provenance:
The form of the pendant and the workmanship of the metal sides bear a strong correlation to a gold openwork 'duck and lotus' pendant excavated from a tomb in Wu County, Jiangsu province, and illustrated in Zhou Fan and Kao Cunming, Zhongguo lidai funü zhuangshi [Decorative Clothing and Accessories of Chinese Women throughout History], Hong Kong, 1988, pl. 398. The style of the makaras, themselves, closely resemble the makaras woven into a 13th century lampa textile in the collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art, included in the exhibition The World of Khubilai Khan: Chinese art in the Yuan Dynasty, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 2010, cat. no. 41.
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formed from two teardrop-shaped sheets of silver joined back-to-back, each sheet worked in repoussé with a pair of makara diving towards one another in pursuit of a 'flaming pearl' at the center of the composition, each makara with an animated dragon face characterized by a long upturned snout, beady eyes, and short horns, the fish-form body with outstretched fins and a long scaly torso sweeping upward and flicking the broadly fanning tail, traces of gilt on one side, the pointed tip of the pendant pierced
Height 2 7/8 in., 7.3 cm
Provenance:
The form of the pendant and the workmanship of the metal sides bear a strong correlation to a gold openwork 'duck and lotus' pendant excavated from a tomb in Wu County, Jiangsu province, and illustrated in Zhou Fan and Kao Cunming, Zhongguo lidai funü zhuangshi [Decorative Clothing and Accessories of Chinese Women throughout History], Hong Kong, 1988, pl. 398. The style of the makaras, themselves, closely resemble the makaras woven into a 13th century lampa textile in the collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art, included in the exhibition The World of Khubilai Khan: Chinese art in the Yuan Dynasty, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 2010, cat. no. 41.
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