Lot 139

Four Luristan Bronze Garment Pins - Floral & Domed Finials

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Lot 139
Four Luristan Bronze Garment Pins - Floral & Domed Finials

Four Luristan Bronze Garment Pins - Floral & Domed Finials

Estimate: $700 - $1,000

Starting Bid: $350

(0 Bids)
by Artemis Fine Arts
August 6, 2026 9:00 AM MDT
Live Auction
686 S. Taylor Avenue
Suite 108
Louisville, CO, US 80027

Northwest Persia, Luristan, ca. 1000–650 BCE. A quartet of long bronze pins from the highland workshops of Luristan, each hand-forged to a slender, tapering shaft and crowned by a distinct decorative head. Two of the larger examples carry biconical or stacked spherical finials, swelling like seed pods above the point, while the two smaller pins terminate in finely modeled crowns of radiating petals, stylized floral rosettes whose openwork tiers catch the light. The surfaces wear a mottled patina of pale earthen deposit and cuprite green, the record of long burial. Such pins fastened woven garments at the shoulder and doubled as personal ornament and votive offering, frequently deposited in graves and sanctuaries. The most petite pin is cast in leaded bronze, an alloy favored for its fluidity in rendering the intricate petalled head. Together they distill the metalworking genius of the Zagros nomads. Size of largest: 0.8" D x 9.3" H (2.0 cm D x 23.6 cm H).

Luristan, the mountainous province of the western Zagros, produced during the early first millennium BCE an astonishing corpus of cast and forged bronzes, horse trappings, standards, vessels, and dress pins, associated with the pastoral, semi-nomadic peoples of the region. Long-shafted pins of this type served the dual role of practical fastener and prestige adornment; many were recovered from grave assemblages and from the votive deposits of sanctuary sites such as Surkh Dum-i-Luri, where worshippers left them as offerings. The floral and rosette-headed variants echo a broader Near Eastern vocabulary of the sacred blossom, while the domed and biconical heads recall the poppy-capsule forms found across the wider Iron Age koine of the Iranian plateau.

Provenance: ex-David Zahler collection, acquired between 1975 to 2004

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Item # 203760

  • Condition: One has loss to tip. All have expected weathering with some flaking, nicks, and abrasions commensurate with age. Otherwise, three are intact and all are very nice with rich patinas and heavy earthen deposits throughout.

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Bid Increments
From: To: Increments:
$0 $299 $25
$300 $999 $50
$1,000 $1,999 $100
$2,000 $4,999 $250
$5,000 $9,999 $500
$10,000 $19,999 $1,000
$20,000 $49,999 $2,500
$50,000 $99,999 $5,000
$100,000 $199,999 $10,000
$200,000 + $20,000