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1 3/8 in. (3.5 cm.) long; weight 34 g
Dr. Johan Carl Kempe (1884-1967) Collection, Sweden, before 1953, no. CK12. Sotheby's London, Masterpieces of Chinese Precious Metalwork. Early Gold and Silver, 14 May 2008, lot 21.
It is rare to find small garment hooks of this type made from gold as they are more often found made of gilt-bronze, such as the pair illustrated by Julia M. White and Emma C. Bunker, Adornment for Eternity, Denver Art Museum, 1994, p. 119, no. 39, dated Warring States or Western Han dynasty. Also illustrated, no. 40, is a small bronze example dated Han dynasty. Each of these is in the shape of a somewhat naturalistic, long-billed water bird and each of these has a convex button below for attachment. The authors note that small garment hooks of this type, with the convex attachment button, first appeared around the beginning of the Warring States period in Shaanxi province. A similar gilt-bronze example of comparable size (3.1 cm. long), dated late Warring States-early western Han, 3rd century BC, is illustrated by Thomas Lawton, Chinese Art of the Warring States Period, Freer Gallery of Art, 1982, p. 126, no. 74. Two small gold garment hooks, each in the shape of a goose and dated to the second century BC, Western Han period, are illustrated by James C. S. Lin ed., The Search for Immortality: Tomb Treasures of Han China, Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, 2012, pls. 73 and 148, the first excavated at Beidongshan in 1986, and now in the Xuzhou Museum, Jiangsu province, the other excavated at Xianggangshan in 1983 and now in the Museum of the King of Nanyue, Guangdong province. Four small gold garment hooks of this type were found in the fifth century tomb of the Marquis Yi of Zeng at Sui Xian in Hubei province and are illustrated in Zhongguo meishu quanji, gongyi meishu bian, vol. 10, Beijing, 1987, p. 11, pl. 19. Like the present example they are plain, but the bird's head hook is more like that of a duck and the body is not as compact, nor the hook as deeply curved as those of the present garment hook.
