Page 257 - J.J. Lally Chinese Art CHRISTIE'S March 23 2023 NYC

932 A RARE IMPERIAL GILT-BRONZE 清康熙Ն十Հ年ǭ鎏金銅Ւ龍鈕「倍無射」編鐘
RITUAL BELL, BIAN ZHONG
KANGXI PERIOD, DATED BY CAST INCRIPTION TO 1713 Ϝ源
藍理捷
紐約
Heavily cast in barrel form, the bell is decorated in high relief with
horizontal bands of bosses alternating with the Daoist Trigrams
flanking four vertical panels, one panel enclosing the reign date
Kangxi wushier nian zhi, ‘made in the fifty-second year of Kangxi’,
one with three characters bei wuyi, denoting its tone, and two
panels filled with archaistic dragon motifs, all above a band of
large flat discs. The flat top is surmounted by a suspension handle
formed by two addorsed dragons.
12 in. (30.5 cm.) high
$400,000-600,000
PROVENANCE:
J. J. Lally & Co., New York.

Heavily cast gilt-bronze bells of this type, known as bianzhong, All sixteen bianzhong would have been suspended in two tiers of
took their inspiration from archaic bronzes of the Western Zhou eight and attached to tall wooden frames, as depicted in a court
dynasty (1100-771 BC). In the Qing dynasty, the imperial court painting by Guiseppe Castiglione entitled, ‘Imperial Banquet in
closely followed Confucian ideals as set out in ancient Chinese Wanshu Garden’, illustrated by Chuimei Ho and Bennet Bronson,
classics such as the Book of the Zhou (Zhou Li) which advocated Splendors of China's Forbidden City, The Field Museum, Chicago,
that rituals should commence with music. In the Qing dynasty, p. 52, pl. 42. The bells are arranged in accordance to their
bianzhong were produced for the court and became an essential thickness and respective musical tone. A carillion of sixteen bells
part of court ritual musical instruments. They were played during is illustrated in Life in the Forbidden City of Qing Dynasty, The
ceremonies at the imperial altars (in particular, the Temple of Forbidden City Publishing House, 2007, pp. 30-31, no. 50.
Heaven and Temple of Agriculture) and during formal banquets
and state rites. The earliest Qing bells were part of a program There appear to be two groups of these gilt-bronze bells dating to
reviving season rituals to be performed by the emperor, reinforcing the Kangxi period: the first, dated to the 52nd year (1713) and the
his claim to the Mandate of Heaven to bring harmony to China. second group to the 54th year (1715). A very similar gilt-bronze
bell cast with the Eight Trigrams and an inscription indicating
nd
The present bell is part of a graduated set of sixteen, each of which it was made in the 52 year of the reign of Kangxi (1713) is in
is cast with varied thicknesses to provide a range of twelve standard the collection of the Palace Museum Beijing, illustrated by Sun
musical tones with four additional repeated notes in lower octaves. Zhaohua, Qing gong bianzhong zhizuo kao (A Review of Musical
Each bell is cast on one side with its respective musical tone, Instrument Chime’s Process in the Qing Court), Palace Museum
opposite the reign mark, and together they appear in the following Journal, Beijing, 2020, No. 4, p. 21, pl. 4, and is described by the
sequence: 1st, huangzhong; 2nd, dalu; 3rd, taicu; 4th, jiazhong; 5th, author as one of a few sets kept in the Forbidden City for use in
guxi; 6th, zhonglu; 7th, ruibin; 8th, lingzhong; 9th, yize; 10th, nanlu; ritual ceremonies at the Imperial Ancestral Temple (Tai miao) and
11th, wuyi (as cast on the present bell); and 12th, yingzhong. In the Hall for Ancestral Worship (Fengxiandian).
Chinese musicology, the twelve main tones alternately provide a
Yang, positive, and Yin, negative note. The four repeated bells of Further gilt-bronze bells dating to the 52nd year of Kangxi
lower octaves, thus making up the total of sixteen, are pei yize, pei include a group of five from the Audrey B. Love Collection sold
nanlu, pei wuyi, and pei yingzhong. at Christie’s New York, 20 October 2004, lot 455; an example sold
at Christie’s New York, 29 November 1984, lot 554; and one from
the Lord and Lady Hesketh Collection sold at Sotheby's Hong
Kong, 9 October 2007, lot 1327. A pair of bells dating to the 54 th
year of Kangxi (1715), was sold at Christie’s Hong Kong, 27 May
2009, lot 1818.

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