Page 205 - China's Renaissance in Bronze, The Robert H.CIague Collection of Later Chinese Bronzes 1100-1900

SED AS PAPER WEIGHTS, these small sculptures represent myth-
ical animals, as indicated by the wisps of flame emanating from
Utheir joints and by their horns and bifurcated tails. Lying quietly
with their bodies in a C-curve, the animals gaze at the viewer, their eyes
wide open. His head raised, exposing his scaled neck and chest, number 47
scratches his left ear with a rear paw. A short mane frames the back of his
head while a single horn crowns its top; tufts of fur embellish the spinal
ridge and deeply articulated spirals mark the joints. The underside of the
feline body is flat and plain. Number 45 rests his disproportionately large
head between the extended front paws, his bulging eyes fixed in a glare,
his slightly open mouth revealing long teeth. Springing from a single point
in the center of the forehead, two horns distinguish this creature from a
lion. Repeating half circles, representing scales, texture the surface; similar
scales cover the underside of the body, incised lines marking the pads and
claws on the bottoms of the paws. Although its small body and slender legs
with cloven hooves resemble those of a sheep or goat, the mythical animal
represented by number 46 has what appears to be a horse's head, which it
holds high. Standing before the coiffed mane at the back of the head, a
horn rises from amidst the forelock; a conventional mane, parted to fall to
both right and left, covers the back of the neck, its striations echoing
those of the tail. Overlapping fish scales cover both the body (excepting
the head) and the flat underside of the piece.
Although bronze scroll weights (yachi) of elongated rectangular
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form had been introduced by the Song, the date of the first appearance
of animal-shaped paper weights remains unknown. First published in 1341,
Guyu tu (Illustrated Compendium of Ancient Jades) notes that the famed
painter and calligrapher Zhao Mengfu (1254-1322) once bought an ancient
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jade b/x/e, which he used as a paper weight, however, indicating that such
were in use by the Yuan. Wen Zhenheng commented in his Zhangwu zhi of
1637 that ancient jade sculptures make the most elegant paper weights
(zhenzhi) but that 'bluish green toads, crouching tigers and chi dragons,
sleeping dogs, inlaid b/x/e, recumbent horses, and tortoise-dragons of
bronze also could be used.' 3 In general, the three animals in the Clague
Collection answer to Wen Zhenheng's description of bronze paper weights;
though their exact identification remains uncertain, numbers 45 and 47 may
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represent b/x/e chimeras [compare 12], and number 46 a qilin or longma. 5

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T H E R O B E R T II. C L A G U E C O L L E C T I O N