168. DEUX PETITS POIDS EN BRONZE Fin de la dynastie Ming/début de la dynastie Qing TWO BRONZE SCROLL WEIGHTS Late Ming/early Qing Dynasty One finely cast in the form of a recumbent mythical beast, the second cast as a recumbent goat with a young on its back. The goat 6.5cm (2 1/2in) long, the mythical beast 5.1cm (2in) long (2). 明末/清初 銅獸鎮紙一組兩件 Provenance: Formerly in a Belgian collection, acquired in Brussels in the 1960s and 1970s Nagel, Stuttgart, 5 November 2010 來源： 比利時舊藏，於1960至1970年代得自布魯塞爾 納高拍賣行，斯圖加特，2010年11月5日 The fine detail of the casting on all sides, including the finely and realistically worked base of both animals, conveys a realistic naturalism and suggests that they were meant to be handled and viewed from close-up in order to fully appreciate their refined beauty. Such small objects of great artistic and highly tactile quality were made in a variety of materials mainly for the amusement and delight of the scholar-literati These two finely cast animal figures belong to a small group of cast bronze objects made as paper or scroll weights. The were made in many shapes and sizes, see, for instance, two examples illustrated in Rose Kerr, Later Chinese Bronzes, London, 1990, pls.72 and 73.