Page 54 - China's Renaissance in Bronze, The Robert H.CIague Collection of Later Chinese Bronzes 1100-1900

Decorated jue and jiao vessels from the Bronze Age almost always
include one or another version of the taotie mask as decoration; since the
jue and jiao disappeared as vessel types with the fall of Shang, extant
examples almost never exhibit the long-tailed birds that rose to popularity
during the succeeding Western Zhou period. Inspired by motifs on early
3
Western Zhou bronzes, the birds that embellish the Clague piece must be
considered anachronistic on a vessel imitating a Shang shape. The bronze
casters who made this piece were almost certainly unaware that their
models for shape and decoration came from slightly different periods; the
important point is that in creating archaistic vessels, artists were not com-
pelled to mimic ancient vessels line for line, but were apparently free to
combine shape and ornament in whatever manner seemed most pleasing
and suitable.
The three inscriptions may be summarized as follows:
Side: At Huizhou-fu, the former Sub-prefect Zhang Xuan promoted
Chen Xin, who is widely experienced, to be the tutor of Zhang Su.
Side: Liu Wei, an official of Chengxuan, Guangdong province. 4
Back: Made in the eighth year of Tianshun [equivalent to 1464], super-
vised by Li Jing, crafted by Huang Shun.

Although jue vessels are virtually unknown among Song and Yuan
ceramics and are comparatively rare among extant Song and Yuan bronzes,
at least two early fourteenth-century bronze examples 5 have been recov-
ered from the remains of the Chinese merchant ship that sank off the
coast of Sinan (Republic of Korea) in 1323. However, in inaugurating his
reign as the Hongwu Emperor (reigned 1368-98), Zhu Yuanzhang (1328-
1398) - the first emperor of the Ming dynasty - ordered that jue vessels in
white porcelain be used in sacrificial ceremonies, presumably on an altar in
an ancestral temple, 6 after which the vessel became increasingly popular.
Jue vessels in ceramic ware are well attested from the Ming dynasty, 7 as are
10
ones in gold, 8 silver, 9 bronze, and even jade. The collection of the Victoria
and Albert Museum, London, includes a bronze jue, virtually identical in
shape and decoration to this one, that bears four inscriptions, one of
which is dated to 1465, just a year after this one, and another of which also
mentions Liu Wei. 11
It is assumed that bronze jue continued to be used as ceremonial
wine vessels during the Ming dynasty - doubtless in Confucian ceremonies
honoring ancestral spirits - unlike the gui, ding, and cylindrical zun vessels
that were appropriated as censers, or the gu, zun, and hu vessels that were

5 0 C H I N A ' S R E N A I S S A N C E IN B R O N Z E