Pair of Plaques with Profile Animal Heads (Western Zhou dynasty ( 1046–771 BC ), 10th/8th century B.C.): Artwork and History

Pair of Plaques with Profile Animal Heads (Western Zhou dynasty ( 1046–771 BC ), 10th/8th century B.C.) is in the Art Institute of Chicago collection. The museum lists its creator attribution as China.

The work and its context

The Art Institute of Chicago describes the work:

This metal plaque is one of a pair that was beaten together to form mirror images of an animal head in profile with gaping mouth and curved fang. Similarly curved and perforated examples, which have been excavated from the burials of horses and chariots, suggest that these plaques originally formed the cheek pieces for a horse's bridle. Alternatively, they may have been sewn onto leather to form defensive armor for the chest or back of a soldier.

Object facts

• Title: Pair of Plaques with Profile Animal Heads
• Date: Western Zhou dynasty ( 1046–771 BC ), 10th/8th century B.C.
• Artist attribution: China
• Place of origin: China
• Medium: Bronze
• Dimensions: 30.2 × 22.4 × 0.2 cm (11 7/8 × 8 13/16 × 3/16 in.)
• Type: Metalwork
• Department: Arts of Asia
• Reference number: 1931.3a-b

Collection credit

Lucy Maud Buckingham Collection

View the original

Explore the artwork in the Art Institute's collection, including its image and the museum's current catalogue details.

The description above is credited to the Art Institute of Chicago and reused under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0; HTML formatting has been converted to plain text. Other catalogue metadata and the public-domain image are provided under CC0 1.0.