Page 62 - Christies IMportant Chinese Art Sept 26 2020 NYC

PROPERTY FROM THE ANITA BALDWIN COLLECTION
1539
A RARE DATED PARCEL-GILT BRONZE TEMPLE
BELL AND A STAND
BELL, HONGZHI PERIOD, WITH CYCLICAL DATE
CORRESPONDING TO 1499 AND OF THE PERIOD;
STAND, JIAJING SIX-CHARACTER MARK AND OF
THE PERIOD (1522-1566)
The bell is finely cast in high relief with a handle formed
by the conjoined forequarters of two dragons above a
border of stylized lotus petals, the body with eight panels,
each containing a leaping dragon, within cloud borders,
all above a band of windswept waves and the scalloped
border enclosing the dated reign mark, Da Ming Hongzhi
jiwei nian mengchun jiri zhi (Made on an auspicious day in
the first month of Spring in the year of jiwei during the Ming
Hongzhi period). The parcel-gilt stand is cast with dragons
and phoenixes.
Bell 12 in. (30.5 cm.) high; stand 30¡ in. (77 cm.)
$120,000-180,000
PROVENANCE:
Anita Baldwin (1876-1939) Collection, Los Angeles,
California, and thence by descent within the family.

The use of bells has a long history in China, beginning
with the sets of musical bells developed in mid-2nd
century BCE. Bronze temple bells would have formed an
important part of the rituals in a Buddhist temple, they
would have provided a platform for dedications; been
rung on significant days; to announce events; and the
melodious sound produced by the bell was considered a
form of communication to the spirit world.
Ming-dynasty bronze bells of this shape can be found
with a variety decorative registers and cylclical dates. A
bronze bell of similar shape, decorated with inscriptions
and trigrams and presented to a Daoist temple in 1431 by
Zheng He, is illustrated in Ming, 50 Years That Changed
China, London, 2014, pp. 272-273. Another example of
this type, a bronze bell dated to the sixth year of Zhengde
(1512), with registers of panels enclosing names and a
double-dragon form handle, was sold at Christie's London,
7 November 2017, lot 192.

銅雙龍鈕鐘及鐘座
鐘：明弘治 「大明弘治己未年孟春吉日製」鑄款
座：明嘉靖 六字楷書款

(mark on stand)

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