Page 157 - China's Renaissance in Bronze, The Robert H.CIague Collection of Later Chinese Bronzes 1100-1900

that might be translated 'The scent of trampled flowers follows the hoofs
of the returning horse.' After reviewing the many submissions, the Emperor
adjudged the winning painting to be one depicting butterflies trailing after
a horse, capturing the sense of the poem. 8
The Clague vase is extremely rare not only in featuring butterflies
as its principal decorative motif but in presenting them so naturalistically
and in such profusion. Although they frequently appear in paintings from
the Song onward, butterflies only occasionally appear in the decorative
arts during most of the Ming, always in association with flowering plants. 9
It is possible that in the decorative arts butterflies first appear as primary
subject matter, independent of flowering plants, on bronzes of the late
Ming period such as this vase. Butterflies sometimes stand as the principal
ornament on early Qing porcelains, where they appear in smaller numbers
and in more formal arrangements. Decorated in overglaze polychrome
enamels, a celebrated Kangxi-period meiping in the Palace Museum, Beijing,
features butterflies against a patterned ground of so-called cracked-ice
type, 10 for example, while many small bowls from the Yongzheng-period
have butterfly roundels painted in overglaze enamels. 11 By the eighteenth
century, several painters, including Shen Quan (1682-after 1760) and Ma
Quan 12 (active 1700-50), had become known for their depictions of butter-
flies. Although they figure more prominently in the decorative arts of the
Qing, butterflies did become important as a decorative motif in the late
Ming, in such examples as the Clague vase.
Though comparative material is limited, the Dehua porcelain zun-
shaped vases mentioned above reliably establish a late sixteenth to early
seventeenth-century date for this vase. A recent publication attributes a
small inlaid bronze vase with related decoration to the first half of the
seventeenth century on the similarity of its technique of manufacture to
that of Hu Wenming bronzes with inlaid decoration. 13 Perhaps for incense
tools, the pear-shaped vase has two registers of butterfly decor, the low-
relief butterflies either gilded or inlaid with sheet silver, exactly as in the
Clague vase. In addition, the vase's lip, footring, and dividing central band
are gilded, as are the corresponding elements of the Clague vase. The
traditional idea that bronzes inlaid with sheet gold or silver are 'early'
(that is, late Ming) whereas those inlaid exclusively with wire are 'later'
(that is, Qing) supports the attribution proposed here; even though inad-
missible as evidence at this time, the hypothesis offered by traditional
knowledge should be noted in the event that future research one day
substantiates it as fact.

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