Page 34 - China's Renaissance in Bronze, The Robert H.CIague Collection of Later Chinese Bronzes 1100-1900

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as their only decoration. With their all-over wave patterns, thirteenth- and
fourteenth-century Jizhou-ware vessels offer the closest ceramic parallels
to the decoration on the Clague vase.
Bands of rolling-wave decoration had appeared on bronze vessels at
least as early as the twelfth century, however, as indicated by the magnifi-
10
cent hu in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, whose dated inscription
corresponds to 1173. In fact, the lowest two registers of decoration on the
Victoria and Albert vase include birds and other animals set against a ground
of tempestuous waves, perhaps the model for the designs on the Clague
vase. In addition, the butterfly-like motifs on the base of the Clague vessel
bear some resemblance to the designs in the third register of decoration
(up from the bottom) on the Victoria and Albert vase, which are similarly
set against a ground of rolling waves. The slight asymmetry of the deco-
rative scheme also ties the Clague vase to bronzes of the Song and Yuan
periods; on the Victoria and Albert vase, for example, an asymmetrically
disposed motif inhabits the uppermost decorative register on the neck. 11
The attention given the base also suggests a Song or Yuan date for this
small hu. During the Song dynasty, for example, the potters at the Yue
and Ru kilns went to great lengths to finish the undersides of their wares,
glazing the bases - indeed, even the bottoms of the footrings - as carefully
as they glazed the more visible upper surfaces. 12 Continuing this taste for
meticulously finished detail, lapidary artists of the Yuan and early Ming
periods typically embellished the bases of their jade vessels as exquisitely
and elaborately as they ornamented the main surfaces. 13 In this regard as
well, the Clague vase displays greater affinity to works of the Song and
Yuan periods than to those of any other.
Although they might have been adapted from paintings on paper
and silk, the wave patterns on Southern Song Jizhou wares might also have
been inspired by decoration on Song bronzes, since the motif appears in
bronze before it appears in ceramic ware. In addition, it is very likely that
Song and Yuan bronzes were the source for the motif of auspicious animals
set against churning waves that figures so prominently in early fifteenth-
century porcelains 14 [compare 12, 21], since that theme was eschewed by
artists painting on paper and silk.

34 C H I N A ' S R E N A I S S A N C E IN B R O N Z E