Page 79 - Later Chinese Bronzes from the Collection of Ulrich-Hk 2014

The dating of these archaistic bronzes is still somewhat unclear. Although the strong shape suggests an early Ming
period, the finesse of the inlay hints at a slightly later date. A bracket of 16th-18th century is possible, but in
Hausmann’s estimation a late Ming date seems most likely. For a closely related gold and silver inlaid vessel of you
form in the British Museum attributed to the 18th century, see The British Museum Book of Chinese Art, London,
1992, fig. 48.
Referring to the importance of reverence to the past in Chinese art, Ulrich Hausmann writes:
"Archaic bronzes and their inscriptions, the subject of centuries of epigraphic and stylistic studies by literary men and
artists, became inseparable, so much so that since that time scholars writing characters have seen at the back of their
minds the image of ancient bronze vessels whose rubbings they had carefully studied. Generations of painters and
calligraphers [...] spent a lifetime studying these inscriptions. What could be more fitting than to embellish one's studio
with subtle allusions to the magnificent past, or to furnish the ancestral altar with vessels expressing the continuation
of their inheritance." (Quote from Ulrich Hausmann, Later Chinese Bronzes: In Search of Later Bronzes in
Documentary Chinese Works of Art: In Scholars' Taste, Ed. Paul Moss, Sydney L. Moss, London, 1983, p.233,
requoted again by Hugh Moss and Gerard Tsang in Arts from the Scholar's Studio, The Oriental Ceramic Society of
Hong Kong and the Fung Ping Shan Museum, University of Hong Kong, 1986, cat. no. 161.

Fig. 1

After: Xiqing Gujian, Catalogue of Chinese Ritual Bronzes in the
Collection of the Qianlong Emperor