Page 74 - Christie's Irving Collection Lacquer Bronse jade and Ink March 2019

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L A C Q U E R • J A D E • B R O N Z E • I N K T H E R V I N G C O L L E C T I O N 髹金飾玉 - 歐雲伉儷珍藏

Fig. 2 A Han dynasty (206 BC-AD 220) bronze “twin fsh” washer documented in the catalogue of the Qianlong emperor’s bronze collection, Xiqing gujian,
Shanghai, vol. 2, 2003, p. 694.
圖二 《西清古鑑》中著錄的一件漢代青銅雙魚洗。

Kaogu, No. 3, 1978, p. 155, fg. 3, and Kaogu, No. 11, 1984, pl. occasionally appear on Western Han-dynasty cold-painted
3, fg. 6). Another similar bronze basin, now in the Liaoning vessels, such as the 1st century dish preserved in the
Museum, with a design of a bird and a fsh, rather than Yamato Bunkakan Museum, Nara (see Special Exhibition
two fsh, but in similar style (see Liaoningsheng bowuguan, - Jixiang –Auspicious Motifs in Chinese Art, Tokyo National
Wenwu chubanshe, 1983, pls. 28 and 29), has an inscription Museum, 1998, p. 66, no. 42).
dated to frst year of the Yongxing period of the Eastern Han
dynasty [AD 153]. The choice of fsh as the motif to decorate the current
imperial jade washer would not simply have been a
This formal twin-fsh motif was also applied to early reference to ancient vessels, but also to the meaning
ceramics. There is a small number of early Yue-ware basins, behind the depiction of fsh. A source for the link between
which were clearly inspired by the bronze vessels with fsh and harmony can be found in philosophical Daoism,
paired fsh. One of these is the Western Jin dynasty (late specifcally in the Zhuangzi 莊子, attributed to Zhuangzi, or
3rd-early 4th century) basin in the collection of Sir Percival ‘Master Zhuang’ (369-298 BC), who, after Laozi, was one
David (see Rosemary Scott, Percival David Foundation – A of the earliest philosophers of what has become known as
Guide to the Collection, London, 1989, p. 33, pl. 13). On the Daojia 道家, or the “School of the Way”. Among other things,
David Collection basin, the fsh are joined at the mouth Zhuangzi consistently uses fsh to exemplify creatures
with an incised undulating line. There is another early who achieve happiness by being in harmony with their
Yue ware basin from the Ingram Collection in the environments. As part of a much more complex discussion
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford (see Mary Tregear, Catalogue in chapter seventeen (Qiu shui秋水 “The Floods of Autumn”),
of Chinese Greenware, Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, 1976, Zhuangzi, who is crossing a bridge over the Hao river with
no. 13), which has similar formal paired fsh on the interior, Huizi, notes: “See how the small fsh are darting about [in
but the fsh on this basin are not joined by a line. Fish also the water]. That is the happiness of fsh.” In chapter six

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