Page 22 - Christie's Fine Chinese Paintings March 19 2019 Auction

(“sacred trees”, “holy trees”, or “divine trees”) by modern archaeologists— contemporaneous with the money trees from Sichuan province, bas-relief
were excavated from the Sanxingdui site at Guanghan in Sichuan province. 5 carvings at the Wu Family Shrines in southwestern Shandong province
The majority of the hundreds of bronze sculptures and vessels, jades, and include highly stylized depictions of fusang trees, demonstrating widespread
other artefacts recovered at Sanxingdui date to the twelfth and eleventh interest in such trees throughout China during the Eastern Han. 9
centuries BC; though, the exact date of the bronze trees is uncertain, they
likely were produced at that same time. Designated Tree Number 1, the Securely dated on the basis of archaeological excavations, money trees
tallest of the eight bronze trees measures 3.96 m., or thirteen feet, in height, are known to have been used only in Sichuan province and only during
implying that the tree sculptures were both very important and highly the Eastern Han period and into the succeeding Three Kingdom period,
6
symbolic to the people who made them; indeed, they likely were considered and thus they can be securely dated to the frst and second centuries AD,
sacred. Tree Number 1 has nine pendulous branches; perched on a blossom, with a few perhaps coming from the third. Indeed, the coins depicted on
a bird appears at the crest of each downward-curving branch, while a fruit the trees accord with the wuzhu coins in circulation at the time, and the
.7
or fower hangs from the lower end of each branch Modern archaeologists representations of Xiwangmu are akin to those on ceramic tiles recovered
assume that the trees represent the magical fusang tree and further assume from Eastern Han-period tombs from Sichuan. 10
that the nine birds represent deities associated with the sun, though no
inscriptions or other written records from the period survive to substantiate Each branch of the tree was separately cast in a two-face mold using the
this assertion. lost-wax process. The branches are very thin and bear the same decorative
motif on each side; in fact, X-ray analyses of branches from other money
If they indeed date to the twelfth or eleventh century BC, the Sanxingdui trees have revealed that the patterns on the two sides line up exactly,
bronze trees were created more than 1,000 years before the Eastern Han attesting to a perfect registration, or alignment, of the mold faces. At the
money trees. Intriguingly, both Sanxingdui bronze trees and Eastern Han “inside” end of each branch is a hook which secures the branch in place
money trees were produced in the same general area—in central Sichuan when inserted into a mortice, or opening, in the bronze tree trunk. With the
province. Without written records from the people who made them, however, branches set at right angles to each other and with the branches of each tier
it is impossible to know whether or not a connection exists between the placed above each other, the weight is evenly distributed along the tree trunk,
Eastern Han money trees and the much earlier Sanxingdui bronze trees. It and the design is symmetrical and harmonious. 11
of course is possible that people of the area maintained a tradition of sacred
trees in the long intervening period, even if they didn’t create sculptures of The most famous of all money trees is the one excavated in 1983 at
them. Wanfuzhen, Guanghan in Sichuan province and now in the Guanghan
12
County Cultural Center. The best known money trees in public collections
In terms of artistic predecessors closer in time to the money trees, the in the United States are those in the Asian Art Museum, San Francisco
14
13
authors of the Kaikodo Journal in 1996 noted the similarity in general (1995.79.a-.dd), the Minneapolis Institute of Arts (2002.47A-RRR),
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appearance of Eastern Han money trees to the depiction of fusang trees on a the Portland Art Museum, Portland, Oregon (2004.114.9A–C), and the
painted lacquer chest recovered from the tomb of Marquis Yi of Zeng (c. 433 Princeton University Art Museum, Princeton, New Jersey (1999-79).
16
BC), near Suizhou, Hubei province, commenting that the “… representations
of heraldic trees, stif and symmetrical, [are] fanked at the top by birds Robert D. Mowry 毛瑞
or beasts. Those trees are depictions of the Fusang Tree from which the Alan J. Dworsky Curator of Chinese Art Emeritus,
Archer Yi shot down nine contender suns. The spiky orbs hanging from Harvard Art Museums, and
the Fusang trees and the representations of coins on the Sichuan money Senior Consultant, Christie’s
8
trees are strikingly similar.” From the mid-second century AD and roughly 哈佛大學藝術博物館亞洲部榮譽主任暨佳士得高級顧問

1 For additional information on money trees, see: Zhixin Jason Sun et al., Age of Empires: Art of the Qin 7 For a detailed image of birds perched on the pendulous branches of Tree Number 1, see: http://www.
and Han Dynasties (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art), 2017; Angela Falco Howard et al., Chinese art-and-archaeology.com/china/sanxingdui/sx13.html
Sculpture in The Culture and Civilization of China series (New Haven: Yale University Press; and Beijing: 8 See: Kaikodo Journal, 1996, no. 55, fg. 6.
Foreign Languages Press), 2006; Stephen Little et al., Taoism and the Arts of China (Chicago: Art
Institute of Chicago in association with the University of California Press), 2000; Kaikodo, compiler, 9 For an ink rubbing of the Wu Family Shrine relief depicting the fusang tree and Archer Houyi 后羿
Kaikodo Journal: Exhibition 23 March - 20 April 1996 (New York: Kaikodo), 1996, no. 55. taking aim at the suns, see: John S. Major, Heaven and Earth in Early Han Thought: Chapters Three, Four,
and Five of the Huainanzi (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press), 1993, p. 160. The rubbing
2 For information on Xiwangmu, see: Suzanne Elizabeth Cahill, Transcendence and Divine Passion: The
was originally published in Édouard Chavannes, Mission archéologique dans la Chine septentrionale
Queen Mother of the West in Medieval China (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press), 1993; Little, (Paris: Imprimerie nationale / Publications de l’École française d’Extrême-Orient), 1909, vol. 3, pl. LI.
Taoism and the Arts of China; Wu Hung, “Myths and Legends in Han Funerary Art,” pp. 72-81, and Lucy
Lim, “Themes of Immortality,” pp. 159-177, both published in Lucy Lim et al., Stories from China’s Past: 10 See: Kodansha, compiler, Chūgoku no hakubutsukan [Chinese Museums], series 2, vol. 4 Shisen-shō
Han Dynasty Pictorial Tomb Reliefs and Archaeological Objects from Sichuan Province, People’s Republic Hakubutsukan [Sichuan Provincial Museum] (Tokyo: Kodansha; Beijing: Wenwu chubanshe), 1988, no.
of China (San Francisco: Chinese Culture Foundation of San Francisco), 1987. 101. 講談社編, 中國博物館, series 2, vol. 4 四川省博物館 (東京: 講談社; 北京: 文武出版社), 1988, no. 101. Also
see: Kaikodo Journal, 1996, no. 55, fg. 2.
3 Little, Taoism and the Arts of China, p. 84.
11 For technical information about the casting of Han money trees, see: John Steele, Leon Stodulski, and
4 See: Howard, Chinese Sculpture, p. 93.
Karen Trentelman, “Deciphering the Puzzle: The Examination and Analysis of an Eastern Han Dynasty
5 For information on Sanxingdui and the objects recovered there, see: Robert Bagley, ed., Ancient Money Tree,” Objects Specialty Group Postprints, Volume Five, 1997 (Washington, DC: The American
Sichuan: Treasures from a Lost Civilization (Seattle, WA: Seattle Art Museum; Princeton, NJ: Princeton Institute for Conservation of Historic & Artistic Works), 1997, pp. 125-141.
University Press), 2001; Yomigaeru Shisen bunmei: Sanseitai to Kinsa iseki no hihōten [Civilization of 12 See: Sun, Age of Empires, p. 217, no. 135; Howard, Chinese Sculpture, p. 96, fg. 1.60.
Ancient Sichuan: Treasures from Sanxingdui and Jinsha] (Tokyo: Kyōdō Tsūshinsha), 2004. よみがえる
四川文明: 三星堆と金沙遺跡の秘宝展 (東京: 共同通信社), 2004; Daniel Weiss, “Seismic Shift”, Archaeology 13 See: http://onlinecollection.asianart.org/view/objects/asitem/search@/0?t:state:fow=2d87339f-
(New York: Archaeological Institute of America), March/April 2015. 53bd-4966-badb-43d46801d4cb
6 For images of one of the Sanxingdui bronze trees, see: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/ 14 See: https://collections.artsmia.org/art/46241/money-tree-china
File:Bronze_Sacred_Tree.jpg 15 See: https://portlandartmuseum.org/learn/educators/resources/posters/money-tree/
16 See: https://artmuseum.princeton.edu/collections/objects/35908