A rare pair of Chinese bronze and inlaid 'tiger' mat...
A rare pair of Chinese bronze and inlaid 'tiger' mat weights, Western Han dynasty, each finely cast as coiled tigers on a circular base, their stripes inlaid with gold and silver, each with silver-inlaid collar, with glass-inset eyes 5.5cm diameter Provenance: Ben Janssens Oriental Art Cf. A comparable set of four weights in the form of fighting animals is housed in the Met Museum, New York, on loan from Nanjing Museum Whilst the original purpose of these is not entirely clear, scholars surmise that they were used in sets of four to hold down woven mats used for seating or to weigh down a funeral shroud. Typical of Warring States period and Han dynasty these weights were, as with the present pair, often sumptuously inlaid with gold and silver to convey the high social status of the owner. The tiger is one of the oldest and most revered animals in Chinese history. According to Han mythology, the tiger symbolised the Western cardinal point, and in conjunction with the Green Dragon of the West, Vermillion Bird of the South and Black Tortoise of the North, positioned the burial within the spatial-temporal features of the universe. It is possible that tigers were deemed to protect the tomb occupant against the malign influences they may encounter in their afterlife.
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A rare pair of Chinese bronze and inlaid 'tiger' mat weights, Western Han dynasty, each finely cast as coiled tigers on a circular base, their stripes inlaid with gold and silver, each with silver-inlaid collar, with glass-inset eyes 5.5cm diameter Provenance: Ben Janssens Oriental Art Cf. A comparable set of four weights in the form of fighting animals is housed in the Met Museum, New York, on loan from Nanjing Museum Whilst the original purpose of these is not entirely clear, scholars surmise that they were used in sets of four to hold down woven mats used for seating or to weigh down a funeral shroud. Typical of Warring States period and Han dynasty these weights were, as with the present pair, often sumptuously inlaid with gold and silver to convey the high social status of the owner. The tiger is one of the oldest and most revered animals in Chinese history. According to Han mythology, the tiger symbolised the Western cardinal point, and in conjunction with the Green Dragon of the West, Vermillion Bird of the South and Black Tortoise of the North, positioned the burial within the spatial-temporal features of the universe. It is possible that tigers were deemed to protect the tomb occupant against the malign influences they may encounter in their afterlife.
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