A bronze 'lion' water dropper, Ming dynasty

Gerard Hawthorn, The Oriental Art Gallery Ltd., London, May 1997.

Oriental Works of Art, The Oriental Art Gallery Ltd, London, June 1995, cat. no. 44.

Water droppers fashioned in the shape of animals were popular features of the scholar’s desk in the Song, Yuan and early Ming dynasties, produced in bronze, jade and porcelain. In Oriental Works of Art (Oriental Art Gallery Ltd, London, June 1995, cat. no. 44) attention is drawn to a closely related water vessel in the Clague Collection (no. 236) in China’s Renaissance in Bronze, Phoenix Art Museum, Phoenix, 1993, cat. no. 43 and it is argued the current example was almost certainly made by the same artist or workshop. In his notes, Hausmann shares this opinion on the origins of this piece. Another of closely related form but inlaid with hardstone in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London (accession no. M.741-1910), is illustrated in Rose Kerr, Later Chinese Bronzes, London, 1990, pl. 72.