Page 211 - China's Renaissance in Bronze, The Robert H.CIague Collection of Later Chinese Bronzes 1100-1900

N IDEALIZED REPRESENTATION rather than an actual portrait, this
sculpture represents a woman seated on a bench in a formal pose,
A_ her head held high, her shoulders squared, her back straight, her
legs pendant. Her tunic has a floral band across the knees and a floral
border about its edges; her jacket has a floral border along its upper edge
and badges of rank, so-called Mandarin squares, on its front and back.
The badges depict clouds, or possibly highly stylized flowers, against a
punched ground, rather than the animals or birds that traditionally indi-
cate civil and military rank. Arranged in an elegant coiffure and held in
place by a diadem, the woman's long hair clings tightly to her head, forming
a point at the center of her forehead and exposing her ears with their
jeweled earrings. The back of the sculpture is plain except for the rank
badge, the decorated collar, and several hair ornaments. A rust-brown skin
conceals the color of the bronze; traces of black lacquer appear in the hair
and drapery ornament.
Human figures rank among the most perplexing of later bronzes in
terms of dating and of identity of individuals portrayed. Because the
inscription incised on the back and sides of its bench mentions both a
date and a place of manufacture, this modest ancestral figure assumes a
documentary importance far beyond its artistic merits. 1
With hands concealed in the sleeves and shoes peeking from under
the robe, the pose represented is one associated with formal portraits of
women at least since Song times, in paintings, sculptures, and woodblock-
printed illustrations. 2 This sculpture's elongated but fleshy face and its
bulging forehead are akin to those of a monumental bronze head of a
woman that has been attributed to the Yuan dynasty but that might date
3
to the early Ming. Although chairs were available, people of means fre-
quently sit on benches without backs in woodblock-printed illustrations of
the Yuan and early and mid-Ming periods, even in formal settings. 4
Except for the head, this sculpture was integrally cast. Visible in the
hollow interior, a tenon anchors the head to the body, but it is not evident
whether head and body were fused together after casting or whether the
head was cast-on. 5 The facial features and strands of hair were cast, but
the decoration on the garment was entirely cold worked. Although not
used extensively in the decoration of bronze vessels until the second half
of the sixteenth century, cold working was employed in ornamenting
sculptures during the first half of the century, as proven by this sculpture.

T I I E R O B E R T 1 1 . C L A G U E C O L L E C T I O N '2 4 9