Page 131 - China's Renaissance in Bronze, The Robert H.CIague Collection of Later Chinese Bronzes 1100-1900

E R H A P S O N C E PART OF A T H R E E - P I E C E A L T A R S E T ( a n g o n g )
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comprising a censer, vase, and globular covered box, this circular
P ding-shaped censer has a low body set on three solid legs of trun-
cated-conical form. The walls rise from the flat base to shape the swollen
body, constrict to define the neck, and then flare gently to form the lip.
The wide lip comprises two parts, a narrow rim - basically the upper edge
of the vessel wall - around the perimeter and a broad, convex ring around
the interior, the two separated by a groove. Three inscriptions carved in
Arabic script embellish the censer's walls, one centered above each leg;
each relief inscription appears against a ring-punched ground in a wide,
slightly sunken ogival panel with bracketed ends and with a small barb,
top and bottom, at the center. A deeply incised line borders each panel,
echoing its barbs, brackets, and contours. The base, legs, and interior are
undecorated; a carved mark appears in the center of the base, its six kaishu
characters arranged in three columns of two characters each within a reces-
sed rectangular cartouche whose ground has been textured to resemble a
tabby-weave fabric.
Entirely cold worked, the relief Arabic inscriptions read:
afdalu al-dhikr The best confessional invocation [is]
la ilaha ilia Alahhu There is no god but God
Muhammad rasul Allah Muhammad is the apostle of God 2

Discussing a virtually identical bronze censer in another collection, John
Carswell commented on the unusual style of the Arabic lettering, particularly
that in the name Muhammad; he also remarked on the swollen forms of
the a///-like vertical strokes. 3
The problem of Chinese bronzes with Arabic/Persian inscriptions
awaits study and resolution. 4 Conventional wisdom holds that since they
seldom turn up in the Near and Middle East, such bronzes were produced
for the Chinese domestic market, for use both by foreign Muslims living in
China and by the large population of Chinese Muslims. History records
that the Hongzhi and Zhengde Emperors took an active interest in Islam and
that they not only studied Arabic but they are rumored to have adhered
secretly to the Muslim faith. 5 In addition, during the mid- and late Ming
many of the palace eunuchs were followers of Islam, having come from
the Muslim communities of West China. Taking into account only these his-
torical circumstances, less cautious authors sometimes attribute all Chinese
bronzes with Arabic and Persian inscriptions to the sixteenth century,
excepting those with Xuande marks, which they occasionally assign to the

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