Page 8 - Deydier VOL.2 Meiyintang Collection of Chinese Bronses

Since the publication of Volume 1 of Chinese Bronzes in the Meiyintang
Collection, the collection has expanded and fifty more ritual bronzes have
been added to those which have already been published.

Many of the new acquisitions take us back to the very origins of bronze- vessel
th
casting in China or, in other words, to the Erlitou cultural period (19 –
16 centuries bc.) in the Xia dynasty and the Erligang period (16 – 14
th
th
th
centuries bc.) at the beginning of the Shang dynasty.
As a result of the collector’s recently renewed concentration on these early
periods, the Meiyintang Collection has been able to acquire several exceptional
bronzes of the Erlitou period, such as the extremely rare jiao listed as no. 160
(p. 68) and has also, as a result, now become the most complete collection in
private hands of bronze ritual vessels of the Erligang period.

The archaic bronze vessels in the Meiyintang Collection, probably the most
important private collection of its type in terms of the quality, the rarity and
the impeccable provenances of its objects, are a concrete testament to and a
visual reminder of the primary importance in Chinese culture of the ancestral
cult.

The daily and seasonal rituals in which ancestral worship is enshrined have
continued among the Chinese for millenniums in spite of the vicissitudes of
life and the social and political upheavals that have marked China in the past
five thousand or so years and these rituals, though in a modified form, are still
part of the daily lives of the Chinese people today, wherever they are living, be
it China proper or overseas, in Southeast Asia, America, Africa or wherever.

In ancient China, the cult of ancestral worship prescribed certain very elaborate
rituals for which bronze vessels were needed, either to hold and make ritual
libations of fermented beverages or to hold the cooked grains and other food
presented as offerings to the spirits of the ancestors. All of the various types
of vessels used in such rituals can be found in the Meiyintang Collection of
bronzes.

Still today, every Chinese home, every merchant’s shop and every restaurant,
workshop or even newspaper kiosk, no matter how small, has its altar dedicated
to the ancestors, on which are arranged offerings and sticks of incense and at
which are celebrated, though admittedly in a simplified form, rituals of filial
piety that trace their origins far back into Chinese cultural history to the days
of the Xia, Shang and Zhou.

I have had the unique privilege not only of working on the compilation of
two volumes of Chinese Bronzes from the Meiyintang Collection, but also of
participating very actively in the formation of this collection by carrying out
research on its objects, and, should I say, tracking down exceptional objects to
further enrich the collection.
I should like, in these few short lines and thus inadequately, to express here
my gratitude to Dr. Stephen Zuellig for the total confidence that he has placed
in me for almost twenty years by entrusting me with the implementation of
this extraordinary project. I shall never forget the sublime compliment which
he recently paid me by calling me his ‘ami cher’, his ‘dear friend’, dear in the
two senses of the word, both beloved and expensive.

These two volumes would not have been able to see the light of day without
the invaluable and timely assistance of Ms. Raphaële Hervé de Sigalony, and
Messrs Vincent Girier Dufournier, Ed. O’Neill and René Bouchara.

Christian Deydier

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