Page 219 - China's Renaissance in Bronze, The Robert H.CIague Collection of Later Chinese Bronzes 1100-1900

S ET ON A SMALL S T O O L - S H A P E D BASE with four cloud-scroll legs,

this candlestick was cast in the form of a court dancer with right arm
raised and left one lowered, the openings at the ends of the sleeves
intended to support candles. The woman wears a long-sleeved tunic that
is tucked into her floor-length skirt, the skirt secured at the waist with a
cincture. The scarf and sash at the chest are also tucked into the top of the
skirt; draped from the belt, a second scarf appears at the back of the image
in a U-shaped configuration, its ends trailing down the side of the skirt to
the feet, where they are animated by the graceful movement of the dance.
Swept into an elaborately styled bun atop her head, the woman's long hair
is held in place by a diadem and hairpins. Her pointed shoes protrude from
under the hem of her skirt, but her hands are entirely concealed within the
long sleeves. Although it covers most of the front of the image, the thin
layer of gilding appears on the back in narrow horizontal bands that con-
trast with the alternating plain surfaces. It is possible that this candlestick
was made as one of a pair, its mate now lost or separated.
Ewers and candlesticks 2 in the form of dancing human figures enjoyed
1
a measure of popularity during the Ming in both bronze and porcelain;
candlesticks depicting long-sleeved dancers apparently first appeared in
Yuan or early Ming times, as shown by a pair recently published with an
3
attribution to the fourteenth or fifteenth century. The tunic, scarves, and
high-waisted skirt indicate that this figure is modeled on a Tang court lady,
as do the tall coiffure and full, oval face, the characteristics well known to
the people of the day from Tang and Tang-style paintings that survived into
4
the Ming. Often associated with customs imported from Central Asia via
the fabled Silk Route, and often associated with the Tang when they were
assuredly popular, dances involving performers wearing costumes with
exceptionally long sleeves had been a feature of Chinese culture at least
since Han times. 5
The dancer's planar forehead, square shoulders, and robust propor-
tions argue for a date in the late Ming for this candlestick; Qing images of
women, by contrast, reveal a taste for frail beauties with elongated bodies
6
and disproportionately large heads set on narrow, sloping shoulders, while
early and mid-Ming ones typically have slightly fleshier faces with bulging
foreheads 7 [see 50]. The contrasting of gilded and ungilded surfaces is also
a late Ming characteristic, 8 perhaps related to the similar phenomenon in
Hu Wenming bronzes [see 11,12].

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 2 2 1