A SILVER-INLAID BRONZE ‘BUDDHIST LION’ WATERDROPPER, 17TH-18TH CENTURYChina. The beast well cast standing foursquare, finely modeled with bulging eyes, wide snout, and scrolling mane, a tiny hole drilled through the teeth and a larger hole centering the back, the details heightened with silver wire inlays, the underside similarly inlaid with an inscription.Inscriptions: To the base, ‘From generation to generation, always much happiness and prosperity’.Provenance: From an old European private collection, assembled before 2007.Condition: Good condition with significant old wear and expected casting irregularities, one paw with a small crack and associated old fill to the underside, the base with an ancient copper fill, few minuscule nicks here and there. Remarkably unctuous feel overall, the result of centuries of handling and appreciation.Weight: 325.6 gDimensions: Length 10.5 cmLiteratureparison:For examples of gold and silver inlaid mythical beast-form water droppers, see Gerard Tsang and Hugh Moss, Arts from the Scholar’s Studio, Hong Kong, 1986, no. 208, and Sydney Moss, The Second Bronze Age: Later Chinese Metalwork, London, 1991, no. 33.Auction resultparison:Type: RelatedAuction: San Francisco, 10 December 2015, lot 8100Price: USD 5,625 or approx.EUR 6,400 converted and adjusted for inflation at the time of writingDescription: A bronze archaistic water dropper with silver wire inlay, 18th centuryExpert remark: Note the larger size (19 cm) and that this example is probably later, its archaic appearance being overall a bit more assimilated to the rather ‘bourgeois’ late 18th-century taste than on the present lot十七至十八世紀銅錯銀太獅水注中國。太獅成趴臥式，大眼圓睜，口鼻寬闊，鬃毛捲曲，牙齒上鑽有一個小孔，背部中央有一個較大的孔，細節處錯銀線。款識：底部錯銀線八字：子孫匜樂，富貴昌宜