Enquiry about object: 10349
Large, Chinese Silvered Bronze ‘TLV’ Mirror (Jing), Inscribed & with Twelve ‘Nipple’ Motifs
China Wang Mang period (9–23AD)
diameter: 20.4cm, overall height (including stand): 26.3cm, weight: 858g, overall weight (including stand): 1,284g
Provenance
private collection, UK
This silvered bronze mirror or jing from the brief Wang Mang period (AD 9-23), China, is unusually large. It is finely cast a central raised, pierced knob. The interior of the face is decorated with a square with 12 raised ‘nipple’ motifs, each one next to one of 12 chen (script) characters, with each one representing one of the 12 earthly branches of cosmology. Around the central square are eight more ‘nipple’ motifs, plus boju geometric designs and in relief, animal and bird motifs.
All this is bordered by a rim that contains a well-cast circular inscription in ancient Chinese script. The broad rim of the mirror is cast with a row of triangle motifs and then a bands of wave motifs.
The surface is encrusted beautifully with malachite and azurite resulting from the build-up of carbonates of copper when the bronze came into contact with the dampness of the ground.
An almost identical, though slightly smaller example is in China’s Henan Museum and illustrated in Li (2009, p. 54). The Museum attributes its example to the Wang Mang period. According to Li, ‘Its fine casting work and elaborate and detailed decoration reflect the connoisseurship and high technical competence of this period. The inscription was not only believed to have the power to dispel ill fortune, it also articulates the doctrines of divination, five phases, Yin and Yang, and conceptions of immortality that flourished during the brief Wang Ming era…’
‘TLV’ mirrors are known as such because they are cast or engraved with symbols that resemble the letters T, L, and V. It is believed that the form represents the four cardinal directions, with the central square representing China as the Middle Kingdom. The fields around the square and within the outer circle represent the Four Seas. The central square within the round mirror alludes to the ancient Chinese belief that heaven is round, and earth is square. The ‘T’ motifs around the central square represent the Four Gates to the Middle Kingdom. The Ls symbolise the marshes and swamps beyond the Four Seas, at the ends of the earth. The eight ‘nipples’ outside the central square are believed to represent the Eight Pillars – the mountains that held up the canopy of heaven.
Such mirrors were produced in workshops in China from the fourth and third century BC and traded across China and outside, to Tibet, Siberia and Central Asia, where they were seen as exotic, luxury tradeable goods that had talismanic and shamanistic value. They were also prestige objects worn by those of high status.
In Tibet, such mirrors were used because of their reflective powers and so were worn by shaman-priests on their chests, to reflect away malevolent spirits.
See a related example in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. See a ‘TLV’ mirror that sold at Rosebery’s London.
The Wang Mang period (AD 9-23) came just after the Western Han Dynasty and before the Eastern Han Dynasty. This interregnum interrupted the Han dynasty, separating it into the Western and Eastern Han periods. Also known as the (brief) Xin Dynasty, it was established by Confucian scholar Wang Mang.
The mirror here is in superb condition with pleasing variation in its patina and colouring. Han period (206BC-220AD) mirrors are rarer than more common and later Tang examples.
The mirror is accompanied by an excellent, custom-made black metal stand.
References
Chen, H., Zhejiang Provincial Museum, Chang Zheng Publishers, 2013.
Li, Q., (ed.), Henan Museum, London Editions, 2009.
Ribeiro, S. (ed.), Arts from the Scholar’s Studio, Oriental Ceramic Society of Hong Kong, 1986.
Sun, Z.J., Age of Empires: Art of the Qin and Han Dynasties, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2017.
