Chinese Song or Ming Bronze Weight in the Form of a Camel

This delightful cast bronze weight in the form of a resting Central Asian Bactrian camel with two humps, was intended as a paperweight for a scholar’s desk. The way in which the humps have been cast suggests that the weight also could have served as a brush rest.

The surface of the weight has a dark patina, and also remnants of gilding.

An essentially identical example is illustrated in Bromberg (2025, p. 69). A further example comprised lot 3689 in Sotheby’s Hong Kong sale ‘Later Chinese Bronzes from the Collection of Sydney L. Moss Ltd. Sydney L. Moss Ltd’, April 21, 2021. (The lot sold for HK$63,000 or £6,100 or US$8,100).

Such weights charmingly combine design with the utilitarian, in a way which conforms with the Confucian aesthetic with its emphasis on scholarship, and which drew upon the natural world to present the harmonious co-existence of man with nature. Such weights were ideal for the scholar’s desk where they might both perform a function and be the subject of contemplation.

The weight here is in excellent condition.