Page 68 - China's Renaissance in Bronze, The Robert H.CIague Collection of Later Chinese Bronzes 1100-1900

Perhaps containers for cosmetics, small, circular, covered boxes ap-
pear among the repertoire of Han-dynasty silver 7 and may have served as
the model for the symmetrical gold and silver boxes from the Tang 8 and
Song 9 dynasties, the distant ancestors of the present incense container
and its congeners. The two halves of such Tang and Song boxes usually
mirror each other in shape, often having vertical walls, rounded corners,
and flat or lightly domed covers; both halves usually are decorated, often
with a floral arabesque - sometimes inhabited by a variety of animals and
birds - set against a ring-punched ground. Ceramic imitations of the gold
10
and silver boxes appeared in the Tang period and rose to popularity in the
11
Song. Typically undecorated, covered boxes in Ding ware usually follow
their gold and silver models very closely in shape; Yue and Yaozhou examples,
by contrast, often add a short footring to the box and a boldly carved
design of parrots or scrolling flowers to the cover. 12 Probably inspired both
by Tang gold and silver boxes and by Song ceramic ones, small decorated
incense boxes became a standard feature of the Ming jade 13 and lacquer 14
traditions. With leiwen borders on its straight vertical sides and with a
carved floral design set against a patterned ground on its broad flat face,
a small red-lacquer covered box in the Avery Brundage Collection, Asian
Art Museum of San Francisco, represents the type of lacquer box that must
have served as the immediate prototype for the Clague box. 15
Although orchids and lingzhi fungi do not figure among the motifs
depicted on Tang gold and silver boxes, a variety of floral motifs, often set
against a diapered ground, embellishes the Ming lacquer and jade boxes
that served as the model for this family of bronze incense boxes. 16 A plant
long associated with immortality, 17 the lingzhi fungus frequently appeared
in painting and decorative arts of the Ming dynasty. The orchid gained
prominence as a subject of Chinese art during the Yuan dynasty, in the paint-
ings of Zheng Sixiao 18 (1241-1318); a symbol of the cultivated gentleman, it
remained popular through the Ming dynasty. 19 Although Hu Wenming
occasionally imitated the ring-punched backgrounds of Tang-dynasty gold
and silver in his work [see top and bottom registers of 12], the clear source
for the patterned background on this incense container is the leiwen
ground of Shang and Zhou bronzes, as filtered through the textured grounds
of Song and Yuan bronzes [see 4-6] and through the ornamental diapering
of Ming lacquers. The same Shang and Zhou bronzes provided the leiwen
band that encircles the sides of the box; although occasionally used as
20
borders in earlier times on both bronzes and ceramics, 21 leiwen began reg-
ularly to be used as borders only in the Ming.

1 10 C H I N A ' S R E N A I S S A N C E IN B R O N Z E