Page 155 - Sotheby's NYC September 20 2022 Forging An Empire Bronzes

S O U N D S O F T H E S O U T H E R N

T E R R I T O R I E S : A L A R G E NA O

F R O M T H E Y A N G Z I R I V E R

B A SI N

金鳴南土：青銅獸面紋鐃

xuding power and mystique, this exceptional large bell, nao, belongs firmly to the tradition of the
bronze industries along the Yangzi river produced at the time of the Shang and Zhou dynasties,
Ewith a regional style entirely distinct from the northern tradition of Anyang bronze casting.

In ancient China, bells were both aurally and visually the most prominent instruments of musical
ensembles, occupying a central role in the prescribed rituals of ancestor veneration. Intended to stand
mouth upwards, raised on a hollow tubular shank, yong, with an almond-shaped cross-section, nao were
designed to be struck with a mallet, with the player able to obtain different notes from the bell depending
on where it was struck; the greater the size, the greater the volume of sound.

The earliest known Chinese bells are small ‘clapper’ bells, typically fixed to a belt or collar, made of fired
clay or copper, from the late Neolithic period. By the Erlitou period of China’s early bronze age, clapper
bells were produced in bronze and were status symbols, associated with persons of high rank and
accordingly found in the largest and most lavish tombs. The upwards-orientation of the nao form emerged
during the Shang dynasty, with the distinct shape possibly based on the duo, a clapper bell cast with a
pronounced shank; see Music in the Age of Confucius, Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery,
Washington D.C., 2000, p. 46.

Large nao, such as the present bell, have been found in excavations in southern China, primarily in northern
Hunan province, but also further east along the Yangzi river basin, in Hubei, Jiangxi, Anhui, Jiangsu and
Zhejiang, across an expansive region controlled by southern bronze-using cultures, whose territory is known
only through scattered archaeological finds. The geography of the discoveries of similar bells strongly
suggests that the south had developed its own bronze casting tradition independent of the northern
bronze centers. Whilst most of the early nao found at Anyang are small and in sets of three; virtually all

本品青銅鐃，雄渾莊重，尺寸卓巨，呈典型的商 正中接中空柱狀甬。演奏時，樂手以槌棍敲擊鐃
周時期南方長江流域青銅風格，與中原安陽青銅 身不同位置以發出不同音調，鐃的尺寸越大，其
器傳統截然不同，具有濃烈的地域色彩及文化特 聲越渾厚響亮。
徵。
現已知中國最早的相類樂器見於新石器時代末，
鐃在中國古代禮樂文化中佔有重要席位，為祭祖 多為小鈴，一般為陶或銅製，繫於腰帶或衣領之
禮制中不可或缺的組成部分。鐃的形制為開口朝 上。到了青銅時代早期的二里頭文化時期，這類
上，呈凹弧形，體部作兩瓦相覆的扁圓體，舞部 鈴已改用青銅鑄造，並成為身分尊貴之人的地位

152 POWER / CONQUEST: THE FORGING OF EMPIRES