Page 372 - Chinese Works of Art Chritie's Mar. 22-23 2018

PROPERTY FROM A PRIVATE NEW YORK COLLECTION
1025
AN ARCHAISTIC GOLD AND SILVER-DECORATED BRONZE Song Emperor Huizong, who was a very keen antiquarian and who instigated
the publication of illustrated catalogues of the items in his collection. One
ANIMAL-FORM VESSEL
18TH CENTURY of these - the Xuanhe Bogu tulu (Xuanhe Illustrated Catalogue of Antiques)
- included an illustration of such an early bronze vessel. While the original
The stocky, tapir-like mythical beast is heavily cast standing foursquare with edition would not have been readily available to later craftsmen, it was
head facing forward, ears pricked and faceted tail curved upwards. The body reprinted on a number of occasions, and the illustration of this zoomorphic
is inlaid in silver and gold with geometric scrolls and the head is cast in relief vessel appears, for example, in the AD 1528 edition, known as the Bogu tulu.
with curved brows and fame-like motifs repeated on the front haunches. A Even in the Song dynasty inlaid bronze copies appear to have been made of
raised collar encircles the neck and a strap spans the chest. The hollowed body these zoomorphic vessels, and their popularity continued into the Yuan and
is ftted with a small hinged cover cast with curved wings below a backwards- Ming periods. A Yuan dynasty example with gold and silver inlay from the
turned bird’s head. collection of the National Palace Museum, Taipei, is illustrated in Through
14 in. (35.5 cm.) long the Prism of the Past, Taipei, 2003, p. 186, no. III-55. Another example, in the
Royal Ontario Museum, dated Yuan-Ming dynasty, is illustrated in Homage
$20,000-30,000 to Heaven, Homage to Earth, Toronto, 1992, p. 102, no. 53; and another dated
Song dynasty from the collection of E. B. Ellice-Clark, illustrated in the
Catalogue of a Collection of Objects of Chinese Art, Burlington Fine Arts Club,
This rare zoomorphic vessel illustrates the scholar’s interest in antiquity London, 1915, pl. XXXV, was sold at Christie’s Paris, 12 June 2012, lot 286.
and especially in ancient bronzes. Bronze vessels of this form with inlaid An example from the Water, Pine and Stone Retreat Collection dated to the
silver and gold decoration are known from the middle of the Warring States Ming dynasty was sold at Sotheby’s Hong Kong, 8 April 2013, lot 171.
period (475-221 BC). An example from Jiangsu, and now in the collection
of the Nanjing Museum, is illustrated in Zhongguo meishu quanji - Gongyi A line drawing of a very similar vessel is illustrated in a woodblock print in
meishu bian - 5 - Qingtongqi (xia), Beijing, 1986, p. 126, no. 144. This bronze Xiqing gujian, the 40-volume catalogue of Chinese Ritual Bronzes in the
vessel shares with the current example the small cover set into its back. The Collection of the Qianlong Emperor, compiled from 1749-1755. (Fig.1) The
examples from the Bronze Age appear to have found favor with the Northern vessel in the Xiqing gujian is dated to the Zhou dynasty.
清十八世紀 銅錯金銀犧尊

Fig. 1. Line drawing of a similarly decorated bronze vessel, zun, as illustrated in Xiqing gujian, 1755, vol. 9, p. 31.

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