Page 101 - China's Renaissance in Bronze, The Robert H.CIague Collection of Later Chinese Bronzes 1100-1900

encourage the reading of the motifs as confronting birds. Even the principal
taotie's unusually shaped (and seemingly mustachioed) upper lip can be read
as wings associated with the avian heads. With this double entendre, the
vessel cleverly refers to two prominent decorative motifs from high antiq-
uity, taotie masks from the Shang and birds from the early Western Zhou.
Although Chinese artists had created items for the scholar's studio in the
form of visual puns that could be read two ways at least since the mid-
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Ming, such liberties probably were not taken with the taotie mask until the
Qing. In like manner, the upper mask on the handleless sides can also be
read in two ways: as a single, frontal taotie mask and as a pair of con-
fronting, bovine-like /cu/-dragon heads; in this case, the added crescent
within the eye favors the reading as two confronting kui dragons. On the
other two sides, the elephant heads have been so well integrated into the
overall design that the inlay work surrounds and borders them and com-
plements their shapes. The band of interlocked T's that embellishes the lip of
this vase recalls the similar band at the base of the taotie mask on the pre-
vious censer [16]; the band at the bottom of this vase has shorter stems.
Tradition would assign this vase to the early to mid-Qing period,
based on its all-over decorative scheme inlaid solely in fine silver wire 10
[see discussion, 16]. The absence of securely dated comparative material
renders precise dating impossible, but the attenuated form with its elegant
profile and well integrated base finds a counterpart in a small Dehua
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fanghu-shaped vase of the eighteenth century. The exquisite craft favors
an eighteenth-century date, as does the playful interpretation of both the
masks and the elephant-head handles. The masks resemble those on
Qianlong-era jades, the resemblance especially cogent because of the
elimination of the leiwen ground. Following standard Ming convention, the
previous vessel [16] furnishes each border with a different ornamental design;
with its interlocked T's at top and bottom, however, this vase embraces
the eighteenth-century taste for formalized borders in recurring patterns.
The previous vessel also reveals its seventeenth-century origins in the use
of a concentric circle within the iris to represent the pupil of the eye; as
noted above, the off-center placement of the pupils in the principal masks
of the present vase reflect eighteenth-century whimsy.

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