Page 26 - Christie's Important Chinese Art Nov 3 2020 London
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mInIature lIudIng vessel wIth scale décor and a cover
roBert d. mowry, senIor consultant, chrIstIe’s
alan J. dworsky curator of chInese art emerItus,
harvard art museums
Its plump circular form, cabriole legs, and animal- have speculated that these miniatures might have
head spout combining to suggest a small, rotund been made for women who came from outside the
animal, this beguiling vessel belongs to a rare group main Zhou states and married into the Zhou nobility.
of bronzes that has only recently commanded
As vessels of the present type are not self-named in
scholarly attention: miniature vessels known as
inscriptions, several different names have been used
nongqi. Made as early as the Shang dynasty (c. 1600
in modern times to characterize them. Sometimes
BC–c. 1050 BC) and continuing through the Zhou
termed yi (an ovoid, legged, pouring vessel with a
dynasty (c. 1050 BC–256 BC), a few such miniature
handle opposite the spout), occasionally labeled xiyi
vessels bear inscriptions that include the character
(an animal-shaped yi), at times described as ding
nong the origin of the name used today to designate
(a legged cooking vessel), and often termed yiding
such miniatures. Although it can mean “play” in
(a combined yi and ding), vessels of this shape now
modern Chinese, that character’s exact meaning in
are usually characterized as lauding, or spouted-
the context of those Bronze-Age inscriptions remains
ding vessels (the name sometimes modified as xiao
uncertain; thus, although we have an ancient name
liuding, meaning a small spouted-ding). Although
for such miniature vessels, the meaning of and
miniature vessels occur in a range of shapes and
reason for their small size remains uncertain. Even
often mimic the form and decorative motifs of
so, the placement of such miniatures in an area
contemporaneous, full-size vessels, the majority of
of the tomb separate from the conventional ritual
vessels occur as miniatures, like the present example,
vessels suggests a special meaning or function, as
rather than as conventional vessels of standard size.
does their occasional placement within a separate
container. As such vessels often contained exotic Bronze vessels with descending-scale decoration,
items—which suggests that they might have called linwen in Chinese, had appeared at least as
functioned as references to or mementoes of early as the Western Zhou period (c. 1050 BC–771
customs and objects belonging to peoples who lived BC), as evinced by a tall, attenuated hu jar in the
beyond the range of the Chinese—a few scholars