Page 12 - Chinese Decorative Arts: The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, v. 55, no. 1 (Summer, 1997)

Vase with Arabic
Inscriptions
.......................................................................
Qing dynasty, 17th-early 18th
late
century
Brass
H. 5 3/4 in. (14.6 cm)
Rogers Fund, 1907
07.205.1

in
uring the Yuan dynasty there was a great of objects pure Chinese forms was produced, simulates antique bronze (see p. IO). The neck
increase in the Muslim population in presumably serving their original functions is decorated on both sides with an incised lotus
China: colonies of Arab and Persian merchants but decorated with Arabic or Persian inscrip- flower, from which issue leafy scrolls, against
settled in the coastal cities of southern China; tions-usually quotations from the Koran or a darkened ground filled with small vegetal
Muslim peoples from Central Asia came to other expressions of faith. A likely explana- scrolls. The handles seem to be simplified forms
Yunnan in southwestern China with the con- tion for these objects, such as this vase, is that of the elephant-head type popular in the sev-
quering Mongol army; and Islam spread from they signal a new stage in the assimilation of enteenth and early eighteenth centuries.
Central Asia along the Silk Roads into north- the Muslim population, who may have been In a private collection is a brass vase of a
western China. A large number of Middle acculturated to the Chinese way of life but different shape, but with a similar surface and
Eastern and Central Asian craftsmen were retained their religious faith, as they still do. nearly identical decoration on the neck, that has
brought to China by Mongol lords, and they The Arabic inscription on this side of the vase a Kangxi-period (1662-1722) mark on its base.
to
helped to create a new international style in has been translated as "Glory God", and JCYW
Chinese decorative arts, particularly in tex- that on the other side as "and praise be to God."
tiles and metalwork. A major part of Yuan- The inscriptions are raised on a ring-matted
dynasty export goods, including porcelain and ground within a cartouche. There are three
textiles, was intended for the Middle Eastern different surface treatments. The Arabic script
market, and many of the articles display is left more or less in its original brass and
Box,
Islamic forms and motifs. However, it was stands out against a darkened ground; other Vase, Incense and Burner
not until the sixteenth century that a group areas are treated with a "patination" that Attributed to Hu Wenming
(act. late 16th-early 17th
century)
late
Ming dynasty, 16th-early 17th century
Copper (box) and bronze (vase and burner) with
parcelgilt
H. vase 3 7/8 in. (9. 8 cm)
Lent Florence and Herbert
Irving
by
u Wenming and his contemporary Zhu
Chenming are among the very few
Chinese metalworkers whose names have been
recorded. Hu's production was so renowned
that it was well documented-extolled by some
authors, such as the anonymous late-Ming
scholar who wrote the Yunjian Za~hi (Records
of Yunjian), and dismissed as vulgar by oth-
ers, such as Wen Zhenheng (I585-i645) in his
Zhi
Zhangwu (Treatise on Superfluous Things).
Yet little else is known about his life except
that he worked in Yunjian, an affluent area
twenty miles southwest of Shanghai that had
long been associated with the arts, and that
his style was continued his son Hu Guanyu.
by
There are close to one hundred pieces-
some bronze, some copper-that have inscrip-
tions bearing Hu Wenming's name. Only two,
however, are dated-one to 1583 and the other
to 1613. Most of the works attributed to him
II