Page 45 - China's Renaissance in Bronze, The Robert H.CIague Collection of Later Chinese Bronzes 1100-1900

T A N D I N G ON A S H O R T , S P L A Y E D F O O T RI N G , this beautifully
proportioned vase has a compressed globular body, of generally
S pear shape, whose upper walls gently constrict to form the tall
neck, obscuring any division between body and neck. The thickened lip
atop the almost imperceptibly flaring neck echoes the footring, harmo-
niously completing the vessel. Ring handles, their moveable bronze rings
intact, appear at right and left, issuing from horned dragon heads affixed
at the base of the decorative band at the top of the neck. Encircling the
widest part of the body, the main band of decoration features two pairs
of highly schematized confronting birds with long, scrolling tails set against
a leiwen ground, a frontally set, fanged, feline mask separating the two
birds of each pair. Four evenly spaced 'rising blades' enliven the shoulder
and neck of the vase, one centered under each ring handle and one
centered above each feline mask. Organized by narrow longitudinal bands
into six vertical columns, leiwen patterns fill the rising blades, dissolving
into an ogival comb-pattern at the top of each elongated triangular blade.
A band of cresting waves embellishes the top of the neck, the whitecaps
rising in slight relief above the wave ground, as the confronting birds and
feline masks rise in slight relief above the leiwen ground in the main
decorative register below. A narrow band of diagonally positioned leiwen
sets off the midsection of the footring; the inside of the footring is plain,
and the base is a modern replacement - silvery solder at its edges attesting
to its recent insertion; for the original base that was most likely cast sepa-
rately and inserted [see 3]. The function of this vase, like the function of
many Song, Yuan, and Ming vessels, is difficult to determine; it might have
served as a ceremonial vessel, though it might also have been a flower vase
[compare 4], perhaps one of a pair of identical vases flanking a censer.
Like the miniature vase in the Clague Collection [3], this handsome
vessel derives from the bottle-like variant of the hu with long, straight neck
-
and compressed globular body - that was popular during the Han dynasty
and that was resurrected during the Southern Song period in both bronze
and ceramic ware. The decorative scheme and ring handles distinguish
this vase from Bronze Age examples, however, as do the slight flare of the
neck and the organic flow of shoulder into neck, the lack of differentiation
between neck and shoulder imparting a pear shape to the body. Thirteenth-
and fourteenth-century ceramics from the kilns at Longquan and Jingdezhen
(including both qingbai ware and porcelain with decoration in underglaze
copper red) share the form of this bronze vase (including rings), under-
scoring the relationship between bronze and ceramics. 1

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 4 1