Page 31 - Deydier VOL.2 Meiyintang Collection of Chinese Bronses

Fake bronzes

As always in the world of art, as soon as a category of objects becomes popular
and monetarily valuable, fakes, some often very well-made, appear on the
market.

In the world of Chinese bronze ritual vessels, the history of fake-making and
fakes starts in the Song dynasty (960 – 1279 ad.).

At the request of the Emperor and Literati of the period, who were attracted
by contempory studies on archaic bronzes, the artisans of the Song produced
numerous reproductions of ancient ritual bronzes. These were of two types:
copies modeled closely in detail on actual ancient Shang and Zhou period
bronzes and then other copies, which, while following the general shape of
ancient bronzes, deliberately added then-fashionable design motifs or other
innovations to suit Song dynasty taste. Copies of this second type which were
stylistically influenced by the art of the Song, are often embellished with gold
and / or silver inlay.

The Song copies of both categories are usually heavier, their metal dark, their
finish rougher, and their decorative motifs more blurred than is the case in
genuine Shang and Zhou archaic bronzes. Their patina, which is usually stuck
onto the vessel, is often composed of a base of turquoise powder and touches
of red and blue rust. The inscriptions, when there are any, are fairly faithful
copies of real inscriptions, but they are less deeply cast into the metal than the
originals.

During the Yuan dynasty, progress was made in the art of copying. Certain
artisans of Henan, Shandong and Shanxi provinces become renowned for the
quality of their work. A number of their reproduced pieces were so good that
they were inadvertently included in the Qing Imperial Collections formed by
the Qing Emperors and are today conserved in the Imperial Palace Museum in
Beijing. In spite of the improvements made in the Yuan dynasty, these copies
are, nevertheless, of poor quality when compared to the genuine masterpieces
of the Shang and Zhou. Their forms look clumsy, the decorative motifs are less
sharply cast and their patina is of mediocre quality. Quite often purely Yuan
period characteristics appear in the vessels’ decor, tell-tale signs of their being
reproductions and not genuine Shang or Zhou period bronzes.

Fakes produced in the Ming dynasty are most usually very artificially archaic
in style and immediately betray their inauthenticity by the baroque quality of
their decoration, which is often enhanced with gold and/or silver incrustations.
These pieces are beautifully cast and of a high quality, but the majority of
their decorative motifs are complete fabrications, unlike anything that existed
during the Shang or Zhou dynasties. They are not the type of object conceived
with the purpose of fooling the uninitiated, but are, rather, artistic creations
inspired by ancient objects. This may explain the popularity of certain artisans
of the period, including Hu Wenming (胡文明), and Zhang Mingqi (張鳴歧),
and Shi Sou (石叟), whose creations have always been greatly appreciated and
researched, even up to the present day.

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