Page 21 - Christie's Fine Chinese Paintings March 19 2019 Auction

an iMportant eaStern han Money tree

mong the many types of luxury burial goods newly introduced during the Han dynasty (206
BC–AD 220), the money tree ranks among the most visually spectacular. Such money trees were
A especially popular in central Sichuan province during the Eastern Han period (AD 25–220), their
popularity continuing into the Three Kingdoms period (AD 220–280), particularly in the southwestern
state of Shu (AD 221–263). Termed in Chinese a qianshu —or occasionally a yaoqianshu —a money
tree comprises a central bronze pole, or trunk, to which are attached a series of cast bronze “branches”
organized in tiers, each tree typically with three to six tiers of branches; this bronze tree has four tiers. A
phoenix with outstretched wings and a long, segmented tail comprising fve strands stands on top of the
tree. The central trunk typically rises from a brick-red earthenware base molded in the form of one or two
animals and covered with emerald-green or caramel-brown lead-fuxed glaze; the base of the present
example is modeled in the form of two crouching beasts, one on top of the other, and it sports a green lead
glaze , now degraded and showing a silvery iridescence. Such money trees are rare in collections outside of
China, lending this beautiful, well-preserved example special importance. 1
Each tier of the present money tree has four main branches, which are set at right angles to each other
and, given the Han interest in directional symbolism, are oriented toward the points of the compass.
Moreover, a smaller, subsidiary branch projects outward at a ninety-degree angle from the center of
each main branch. Cast with openwork designs, each branch, whether main or subsidiary, includes a
wealth of real and mythical animals but always features Xiwangmu, the Queen Mother of the West,
seated on a throne supported by a dragon and a tiger as the central motif and always boasts several
coins from which rays project around the periphery, likely rays of light. The coins are wuzhu coins—i.e.,
the familiar circular coins with a square opening at the center—which were minted in Sichuan province
and which were the standard coin of the realm from 118 BC until AD 618.
Money trees embody wishes for the continued well-being and prosperity of the deceased’s spirit in
the afterlife as evinced by the coins on each branch. Of greater importance, the representation on
each branch of Xiwangmu, the most important of the deities venerated during the Han, attests to the
hope that she will assist the deceased in gaining immortality, as she was believed to have the ability
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to dispense long life, even eternal life. The presence of the phoenix at the top suggests that the tree
represents the magical fusang tree, which was believed to grow in the Eastern Sea and which, according
to ancient mythology, was the perch on which a golden sun-bird alighted each morning, bringing light
and warmth to the new day.
Because of the coins, such bronze trees today are called qianshu, or money trees, but that term frst
appeared only in texts from the eighth century AD; it remains unknown whether or not there were
any connections between early discoveries and such later records. Stephen Little states that the later
designation as money trees is “É a somewhat misleading one because the main decorative motifs on
both the bronze tree and its clay or stone base are not coins, but deities on dragon-and-tiger thrones,
immortals playing the liu bo game, heavenly horses, the drug-pounding hare, and musicians and
dancers. Coins appear only as leaves hanging down from each branch. In view of the fact that some
trees are decorated with large, iconlike, divine images, if we must give this object a name, a “divine tree”
(shen shu) probably better refects its nature.” 3
The origin of the money tree remains obscure, though some scholars cite a possible descent from
the bronze sculptures of trees recovered from the ancient site of Sanxingdui, also in central Sichuan
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province. Scholars note that in the late 1980s, eight cast-bronze sculptures of trees—termed shen shu