Page 9 - Chinese Decorative Arts: The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, v. 55, no. 1 (Summer, 1997)

-
Vessel in the Form oa waterfowl w -l ' " : - ' ,
.................... ............
............................................... .... : ' ' ' , ' .
Song dynasty, 960-1279, or later t - ~ ~ ! i ' r ! ^ ' ' j - I
iX , I
with
Bronze gold and silver inlay i I -,
i
L. 8 1/4 in. (21 cm)

V from before the Han dynasty. At the
owir
height of the antiquarian movement, during 'i i ;
the eleventh century, this form was revived-
although somewhat modified. A bronze vessel
very similar to this one is illustrated in the Bogu
a
tu (fig. i), catalogue compiled in the early
twelfth century and reputed to be of the Song
imperial collection of antiquities. However,
there is at present no way of ascertaining
whether any of the existing versions of this

earlier. A number of the vessels shown in the
Bogu tu have been copied down to recent
times, especially after the appearance of the
first woodblock printed edition of the book.
The earliest known printing dates from the
years 1308 -1, but there may have been an
edition produced during the Southern Song
period (1127-79), copies of which are now
lost. Nevertheless, one factor weighs in favor
of a relatively early date for such animal-shaped
bronze vessels with elaborate gold and silver
inlay: they are stylistically distinct from all
datable examples of inlaid bronzes of the six-
or
teenth century later, on which the patterns
are more geometric and less fluid. A piece very
close to the Metropolitan's, pattern and
in both
a
inlay technique, has been assigned Song date
on the basis of a thermoluminescence test on : : ::; : : i: :
the core. :::
This vessel has lost the loop handle across
the mouth (see fig.i), and a circular perforation
was drilled through the bird's neck before
the piece entered the Metropolitan Museum's
collection in I914. JCYW

' N :: rt v ' Fig. Bird-shaped iun vessel from the Zhou
i.
:
.... _ . dynasty, from Wang Fu, Xuanhe Bogu tu
(Illustrations of Xuanhe Antiquities), compiled
7
IIo7-IO (juan [scroll] 7, leaf ioa). Reproduced
S from the Yizhengtang edition, 1752. Department
of
:~: :i : : . A sian A rt Library
:::::::: : ::: : ::

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