Page 106 - Christies Fine Chinese Works of Art March 2016 New York

A TREASURE FROM
THE SECOND BAOJI GROUP: NV MU YOU
(LOT 1389)
Baoji, the ancestral land of the Zhou people, has the reputation of being
the “home place of Chinese bronzes”. The discovery of two bronze altar
sets and associated bronze vessels, known as the frst and second Baoji
groups, ranks among the most remarkable discoveries of bronzes made in
Baoji. The frst Baoji group, comprising a large bronze altar and twelve ritual on Shang and Zhou Bronzes Unearthed in Baoji Daijiawan Area), the scholar
vessels, was discovered in 1901, and soon entered the collection of Duanfang
(1861-1911), then governor of Hubei province. (See. Shanghai Museum ed.,
Noble Life of the Zhou, Shanghai, 2014, p. 248) After Duanfang’s death, this
famous group was purchased by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New
York, through a missionary scholar, John C. Ferguson, and is still housed at
the museum today. In the late 1920s, another bronze altar was discovered in
Baoji, together with a large number of ritual bronze vessels. From a black-
and-white photograph (Fig. 1) in the Academia Sinica, Taipei, we learn that
besides the centerpiece-bronze altar, which is now in the collection of the
Tianjing Museum, the second Baoji group also included the four-handled gui
vessel, the you vessel with projecting fanges, and the pedestaled gui vessel
with phoenix pattern now in the Freer and Sackler Galleries, Washington
D.C. as well as a gong on a rectangular base in the National Museum of
Denmark, Copenhagen.
The provenance of the present Nv Mu you can be traced to the second Baoji
group, based on its inscription, form, and patina, which makes it one of a
few pieces from that remarkable fnd still remaining in private hands. The
inscriptions on the present vessel, Nvmu zuo Muji yi (Nvmu made this ritual
vessel for Consort Ji) is exceptional given that both the commissioner and
recipient of this piece are females, which rarely occurs with ritual bronzes.
An ink rubbing of this inscription was frst published by Luo Zhenyu in his
seminal work, Sandai jijin wencun (Surviving Writings from the Xia, Shang,
and Zhou Dynasties) in 1937, and later included in the Yinzhou jinwen jicheng
(Compendium of Yin and Zhou Bronze Inscriptions) in 1984. Although the
inscription has long been published, the form of this piece was unknown to
previous scholars, so that it was categorized as an unknown vessel in the
Yinzhou jinwen jicheng, and the entry suggested that it was from Fengxian
county, Shaanxi province. Further research fnds a brief reference of Nv Mu
you, together with other bronzes from the second Baoji group, in a 1983
publication, Yongbao tongqi xiaoqun tushuochangbian (Illustrated Eassy on
the Baoji Bronze Group) compiled by a local scholar in Shaanxi, Liu Anguo.
The reference says “with a six-character inscription ‘Nv Mu’…the patina is
fne and ancient and the decoration is intricate, however, the photography
is not very clear.” This record also provides the measurements of the you:
28 cm. high overall; 21.5 cm. high excluding the cover; and 11.1 cm. deep x
14.3 cm. wide at the oval mouth. Comparing these data with the present
you vessel, we fnd the measurements, especially the size of the mouth, are
slightly diferent. It is possible that either the you published in Liu Anguo’s Baoji. This fascinating discovery confrmed not only the existence of bronze
essay is a companion to the present you, or there is some error in Liu’s
record. In Western Zhou archaeology, you vessels are often found as a set of
two, with similar form and decoration but of diferent size. The practice of
casting you in sets of two is very common in the Baoji area. In fact, two you
vessels in the frst Baoji group are a set. In a recent excavation of a Western on the vessels in M4 are more complicated and even contain a clan name,
Zhou tomb in Shigushan, Baoji city, archaeologists also found three sets
of you vessels. However, the ratio of heights between the large you vessel
and small you vessel of all the aforementioned examples is 0.67-0.72. (See
‘Shigushan xizhou muzang chutu tongqi chutan’, Wenwu (Cultural Relics),
2013, no. 4, p. 62, chart 2). According to this ratio, the diference between
the measurements of the present you and Liu’s record is too small for them
to be a set. Liu Anguo’s essay is based on fve albums of photos of artifacts,
including more than 100 bronzes from the second Baoji group purchased in
104
Xian in 1945. By the time his essay was printed as one of the Shaanxi wenshi
congshu (Shaanxi History and Literature Books Series) in 1983, his photos
were all lost. Fortunately, in writing her master’s thesis, Baoji Daijiawan diqu
chutu Shang Zhou qingtongqi de zhengli yu yanjiu (Compilation and Research
Ren Xueli found these photos in the Baoji Museum. A black-and-white image
of the Nv Mu you reproduced in Ren’s thesis further substantiates that the
present you is the one in Liu’s record, and therefore is from the second Baoji
group.
You vessels of oval cross-section frst appeared in the late Yinxu phase II (c.
1200 B.C.), and thereafter became one of the most important wine vessel
types in the ritual vessel repertoire. From the late Shang period to the early
Western Zhou, oval-sectioned you vessels underwent several changes. Firstly,
two sides of the body along the long axis became more and more rounded,
and eventually developed into a rectangular cross section with round corners
in the Middle Western Zhou period. Secondly, the handle evolved from a
rope-twist form to a strap shape with elaborate surface decoration, and with
relief animal heads at the junction between handle and the rings on the body.
Lastly, the knop changed from acorn shape to a ring shape. The stylistic
traits of the present Nv Mu you indicate that it is a rather early example. A
closely related you vessel, but with an additional band of plantain motif on
the sides of the cover, was excavated from Liujiazhuangbei M1, Anyang, and
illustrated in Zhongguo qingtongqi quanji (Compendium of Chinese Bronzes),
Beijing, 1997, vol. 3, p. 127. The Liujiazhuangbei M1 is assigned to the Yinxu
phase IV. Given that the decoration on the present you vessel is relatively
simpler than the Liujiazhuangbei you, and the one ring end of the handle has
a knop to prevent the handle from swinging over, the dating of the Nv Mu
you is slightly later than the Liujiazhuangbei example, which puts it to the
very end of the late Shang dynasty. In terms of the inscription, the deeply
cast characters with varying stroke widths also indicates a late Shang date.
It is interesting to note that the titles of both the commissioner and recipient
of this vessel, mu and fu, are for female aristocrats of the Shang royal family.
This inscription therefore raises the question of why a Late Shang bronze
vessel belonging to the Shang royal family was discovered in an important
early Western Zhou site. In fact, a myriad of Shang clan signs were found
on bronzes in both the frst and second Baoji groups. This contrasts sharply
with typical Western Zhou bronze groups that usually belong to one family
lineage, and made some scholars question the validity of the two Baoji
groups being true sets, i.e., vessels used at one time by a single individual in
the performance of ritual (see Jessica Rawson, Western Zhou Ritual Bronzes
from the Arthur M. Sackler Collections, Vol. IIA, Cambridge, 1990, p. 155).
In 2012, archaeologists discovered a third bronze altar set in Shigushan,
altar sets in the Baoji area, but also the coexistence of bronzes belonging
to diferent clans in the same tomb. The Shigushan M3 yielded 31 bronze
vessels, 16 of which bear inscriptions of 9 diferent clans (see Shanghai
Museum ed., Noble Life of the Zhou, Shanghai, 2014, p. 23). The inscriptions
Shi, from the remote Shandong province, illustrated ibid., and as suggested
by archaeologists Wang Zhankui and Ding Yan, p. 248, “the most proper
explanation for this phenomena is that during the process of conquering
Shang territory, Zhou people seized a great number of war trophies. Bronzes,
including those belonging to the Shi clan, were brought back to Zhou
territory and were awarded to noblemen.” The present Nv Mu you was also
made for Shang aristocrats, but was taken by the Zhou people during the
conquest.