A CHINESE BRONZE 'DRAGON SLAYER' MIRROR

Song Dynasty (960 - 1279 C.E)

宋 銅屠龍紋鏡

The mirror formed with a barbed rim enclosing a scene cast in relief to depict Ci Fei atop a sailing boat battling a dragon that stands in the way as a whale head emerges from the tumultuous waves, topped with an archaistic four-character mark that reads 'huang pi chang tian' above a partially eroded raised knob,

16.8cm diameter, weight approx. 395g

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NOTE:

Jan Stuart, whilst Keeper of Asia at the British Museum, noted that the original production location of these types of mirrors is subject of debate amongst scholars, and there are examples known both in China and Korea having been excavated from tombs. In her book 'Korean Art, 5th to 19th Century, from European Museums and Collections', Ingelheim am Rhein, 1984, Youngsook Pak attributes the manufacturing to Korea, whereas Rose Kerr attributes them to China in her book 'Later Chinese Bronzes', Victoria & Albert Museum, 1990.

REFERENCE:

A similar mirror, dated to the Southern Song period, is illustrated in 'Ancient Bronze Mirrors from the Shanghai Museum', Shanghai, 2005, pp. 320-1, no 121. Another mirror is illustrated by Ju-hsi Chou in 'Circles of Reflection: The Carter Collection of Chinese Bronze Mirrors', the Cleveland Museum of Art, 2000, p.85, no 80, and in which the author notes that mirrors of this type are originally of northern provenance and subsequently spread to the north east and Korea. A similar example, dated to the Song Dynasty, is illustrated by T. Nakano et al. in 'Bronze Mirrors from Ancient China: Donald H. Graham Jr. Collection', 1994, pp. 274-5, no. 107.

A comparable example is housed in the collection of the British Museum, dated to the Goryeo Dynasty (concurrent with the Song Dynasty), acc. no. 1926,0407.10.

A comparable mirror from the H. Ellsworth collection was sold by Christie's New York, 22nd March 2012, lot 1470.

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