Page 54 - March 17, 2020 Impotant Chinese Art, Sotheby's, New York

Bianzhong were produced for the court during the Qing
2010, lot 2105. Other bells from the 1715 sets include: one
dynasty as an essential component of Confucian ritual of the taicu (3rd) tone sold in the same rooms, 19th March
ceremonies at the imperial altars, formal banquets and 2007, lot 25; one of the guxi (5th) tone sold in our New York
processions. The music produced by these instruments rooms, 20th March 2012, lot 2012; one of the ruibin (7th)
was believed to facilitate communication between humans tone, sold at Christie’s Hong Kong, 1st December 2009, lot
and deities. Gilt-bronze bells of this type were assembled 1942 (part lot); another of the wushe (11th) tone sold in our
in sets of sixteen and produced twelve musical tones, with Hong Kong rooms, 26th April 1999, lot 520; and two of the
four tones repeated in a higher or lower octave. These yingzhong (12th) tone, the first sold Christie’s Hong Kong,
sets were further divided into yin or yang, indicated by 1st December 2009, lot 1942 (part lot) and the second in our
a solid horizontal line or broken line under the panel of Hong Kong rooms, 8th April 2010, lot 1858.
inscriptions to represent a minor or major key respectively. Imperial gilt-bronze bianzhong were also produced with
The present bell generates the most important and first a design of dragons in high relief. Two examples of the
tone, huangzhong, from the set. The huangzhong tone was huangzhong tone are known; the first, in the Palace Museum,
considered the founding principle of music, and was the note Beijing, is illustrated in Zhongguo meishu quanji gongyi
played at the beginning and end of each ritual. Cast in equal meishu bian [Complete Series on Chinese Art], vol. 10,
size but varying in thickness, these bells were attached to tall Beijing, 1987, pl. 176; the second, formerly in the collection of
wooden frames in two rows of eight as depicted by Giuseppe Robert de Semallé (1849-1936), was sold at the Hôtel Drouot
Castiglione (1688-1766) in his painting Imperial Banquet by Tessier & Sarrou, 16th December 2019, lot 23.
in Wanshu Garden (ca. 1755), included in the exhibition The dragons surmounting this bell are known as pulao, which
Splendors of China’s Forbidden City. The Glorious Reign of according to ancient Chinese legend is one of the nine sons
Emperor Qianlong, The Field Museum, Chicago, cat. no. 101.
of the dragon. The myth alleges that Pulao resided close to
At least four sets of bells of this design appear to have been the shore while his arch enemy, the whale, lived in the ocean.
created during the Kangxi Emperor’s reign for the Temple Whenever the whale would come to attack, Pulao would
of Agriculture in Beijing: two sets of which are dated to the sound a roar. The structure of a bell is thus associated with
52nd year of the Kangxi reign (1713) and the second two sets this legend; the clash of the bell, Pulao, with the striker, the
from the 54th year (1715). Along with the present lot, only whale, would result in the dragon producing its loud ringing
one other bell of the huangzhong tone from the latter set is roar.
known, and was sold in our Hong Kong rooms, 7th October
105