Page 209 - China's Renaissance in Bronze, The Robert H.CIague Collection of Later Chinese Bronzes 1100-1900

The dragon brushrest [49] was fashioned in the form of two inter-
twined chi dragons whose sinuously curved bodies create an openwork
design of horizontal C-form. Elegantly attenuated, the bilaterally sym-
metrical dragons have tubular bodies with arched spines, the spines
articulated with a ridge; turning their heads over their backs to confront
each other, they step on their own bodies. Each chilong has a long S-
curved beard, a coiled snout, and two short pointed horns; each raises its
proper right front leg as if striding, the leg echoing the S-curve of the
dragon's firmly planted left front leg and balancing the strong curve of its
undivided tail. Each chilong has large paws with three well defined toes,
the claws clearly indicated.
In his discussion of elegant appointments for the scholar's studio,
Wen Zhenheng comments that among the most desirable brushrests are
bronze ones in the form of either a single chi dragon or of intertwined double
12
ones. Although he offers no description, Wen's intertwined chilong brush-
rests probably correspond to this one in the Clague Collection.
Evocative of the late Zhou and Han periods, the chilong had long
been popular as decoration on materials destined for the scholar's studio
[see 13]. Already in the Yuan dynasty, some porcelain water droppers for
the desk were furnished with openwork handles in the form of a chi dragon
with an arched spine. 13 By the late Ming, such dragons often appeared as
high-relief ornament on touhu vessels [9] and on a variety of bronze and
porcelain vases. 14 In fact, the dragons that make up this brushrest might
best be considered translations of high-relief ornamental chi dragons into
fully three-dimensional ones.
The similarity in style to ornamental dragons on late Ming vessels
establishes the late sixteenth to early seventeenth-century date of this
brushrest. The bilateral symmetry is also a late Ming trait, early Qing
examples presenting pairs of chilong as complementary opposites [see 32]
rather than as mirror images of each other [see 13]. Qianlong brushrests
embrace a markedly different style, depicting the dragons as mother and
cub rather than as twins; the long snouts and large, three-toed paws, so
characteristic of late Ming chilong, disappear from such Qianlong pieces,
15
the legs and paws, in some cases, much reduced. At least two other late
Ming brushrests in the form of intertwined chi dragons are known, both
virtually identical to the one in the Clague Collection. 16

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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