Pair of bronze objects which originally topped the corner posts at the back of a chariot where the charioteer would climb aboard. They served a practical and a decorative purpose and must have belonged to an influential person. Both finials are inlaid with silver and marked ‘Ling Li’. Each fitting has a flat circular top with a small hole in the center, possibly for attachment to the wooden chariot posts. The tubular sides are inlaid with highly stylized scrolling motifs and linear spirals. Not much is exactly known about ‘Ling Li’. In the collection of Gustaf Adolf, crown prince of Sweden was a chariot fitting with the inscription ‘Ling Li Guo Shi’ which has been translated as ‘the family Guo of Ling Li village’. The Chinese characters ‘Ling Li’ may have been an authorization to mark products of superior quality which may be comparable to marks on high quality porcelains made in the imperial porcelain city of Jingdezhen. Regina Krahl, former acting curator at the British Museum, mentions that ‘Ling Li’ is the name of a road leading to Maoling (40 kms to the west of Xian), the mausoleum of Emperor Han Wudi who reigned China from 141-87 BC so it is plausible that these finials came from an accompanying grave. There are more than twenty attendant tombs of different sizes located around the Maoling Mausoleum. According to historical records, most of these tombs were of generals, concubines, relatives of royal families and others who had rendered service during the reign of Emperor Wu Di. According to the late Dr Thomas Lawton, internationally esteemed scholar of Chinese art, the earliest reference to Lingli appeared in the biography of a Western Han dynasty official, Shi Fen (d. 124 BC), who retired to Lingli after a long official career. In the biography Lingli is identified as a village near Maoling County, located in the present-day Xingping City, Shaanxi province. Maoling County was allegedly established to the southeast of the mausoleum of Han Emperor Wudi and developed into a residential area known for its extravagant lifestyle, with a population of over 270,000 housing many wealthy elites. Similar finials like ours are illustrated in Dr Lawton’s book, Chinese Art of the Warring States period, pl. 18, where it is mentioned that bronze caps shaped like ‘axle caps’ are reported to have been found in a tomb on the tops of the two rear corner posts of a chariot. The misconception that these finials were “axle caps” was taken over by the well-known London antique dealers Spink when describing a pair of chariot post finials in their summer catalogue of 1994. Our post finials date from the Western Han period (206BC – 25AD). Height 7.2 cm. Diameter top 4.8 cm. For other chariot post finials see Quick Find 4875 and 4879. More objects marked ‘Ling Li’ can be found under Quick Find 4807 and 4811. Provenance: (1) The collection of Julius Eberhardt. Published: Regina Krahl, Collection Julius Eberhardt, Early Chinese Art, Vienna, 2000, pl 58; (2) Nagel Auktionen Stuttgart December 2017; (3) The collection of Feng-Chun Ma, Chinese & Japanese Art Consultancy, Amsterdam, 2021.