Page 96 - Christie's London Fine Chinese Ceramics Nov. 2019

IMPERIAL RESONANCE:

AN EXTREMELY RARE
IMPERIAL GILT-BRONZE BELL

Rosemary Scott, Senior International
Academic Consultant, Asian Art

This magnifcent and rare gilt-bronze bell bears an inscription
dating it to the eighth year of the Qianlong reign, equivalent to
AD 1743, and a further inscription identifying the tone of the bell.
Bells of this type were known as bianzhong and were usually
assembled in sets of sixteen, providing twelve musical tones
with four repeated notes in lower or higher octaves. The twelve
Chinese musical tones are arranged in the following sequence:
Huangzhong (1st), Dalü (2nd), Taicu (3rd), Jiazhong (4th), Guxi
(5th), Zhonglü (6th), Ruibin (7th), Linzhong (8th), Yize (9th), Nanlü
(10th), Wuyi (11th), and Yingzhong (12th). In Chinese musicology,
the twelve main tones alternately provide yang, positive, and yin,
negative, notes. The four repeated bells of lower octaves, making
up the total of sixteen, are Bei Yize, Bei Nanlü, Bei Wuyi, and Bei
Yingzhong. The current bell bears an inscription identifying it as
Bei Nanlü. The sixteen bells were arranged in accordance with
the musical note of the individual bells, which was determined by
their thickness. The height of the bells in a set did not vary, only
the thickness. The current bell was one of the heaviest and would
have been hung from the lower horizontal beam of the frame,
third from the right. The bells were cast from bronze then hand
fnished to achieve precisely the right pitch before being gilded.
While a small number of such bells are known, the heavier bei
bells are very rare.
Bianzhong bells were essential in conducting Confucian rituals
at the Imperial altars and other state ceremonies, including
ascension ceremonies when a new emperor took the throne,
formal banquets and other court assemblies, and during
processions of the Imperial Guard. It may be signifcant that the
current bell is dated to the eighth year of Qianlong, 1743, since
it was in this year that the Qianlong Emperor made his frst
‘Northern Tour’ to visit the ancestral tombs in Mukden (modern
day Shenyang in Liaoning province). Undoubtedly, formal music
would have been required for the rituals performed in honour of
the imperial ancestors. This tour, which lasted 107 days, was very
important to the Qianlong Emperor, and he commemorated it