Page 17 - Avery Brundage Ancient Bronzes and Collecting Biography

was an official title that appears in numerous bronze inscriptions, often indicating a po-
44
sition in direct service to the Shang king. Renfang is commonly understood as an en-
emy of the Shang toward the end of the Shang dynasty; it was located in the Huai River
region to the southeast of the Shang domain. 45
The rhinoceros was allegedly unearthed in the Shandong region, according to an 1845
book :

濟寧鍾養田近在壽張梁山下得古器七種，鼎三、彝一、盉一、尊一、甗
一、其魯公鼎、犧尊已歸曲阜孔子 (府) 矣. . . . . . 犧尊為牛形，篆文四行，
銘二十八字，俱在腹內. . . . . . 獨角高鼻。本在任城，今歸曲阜衍聖公府內藏

徐宗幹 (1796–1866), 濟州金石志》vol. 1
,
Zhong Yangtian of Jining recently obtained seven ancient objects in Shouzhang at the
foot of Liangshan: 3 ding, 1 yi, 1 he, 1 zun, and 1 yan; among them, the Lu Gong ding and
the animal-shaped zun have already been acquired by the Master Kong family of Qufu.
. . . The animal-shaped zun is the shape of a bovine, with four columns of seal-script
inscription of twenty eight characters, all on the inside of the belly. . . . Single horn and
prominent nose. [The vessel] was originally at Rencheng, and has now been entered
into the collection of the family of the Most Holy Duke [title conferred on lineal de-
scendants of Confucius, i.e., the Master Kong family of Qufu].
Xu Zonggan (1796–1866), Annals of Metal and Stone of Jizhou, vol. 1

The Chinese word niu, or “bovine,” can be generally applied to many ungulates, includ-
ing rhinoceros. There are two curious discrepancies between the description quoted
here and the Brundage rhinoceros: 28 as against 27 characters of the inscription, and a
single horn rather than two. Fortunately, the Annals publishes also a transcription of the
actual inscription, which matches that on the Brundage vessel, leaving no doubt that the
“animal-shaped zun” indeed refers to the rhinoceros.
Shouzhang is located on the plain in the western part of Shandong; in Shang times
it was an important region east of the Shang capital Anyang. Liangshan, or Mount Li-
ang, is a hill in the Shouzhang area, where quite a few bronzes of the late Shang and
early Western Zhou periods have been found over the years, the most famous being the
so-called Seven Bronzes of Liangshan, including the rhinoceros. Some speculated that
46
the Liangshan might be where Xiaochen Yu was established as the local lord, though
47
there is little evidence to support this hypothesis, while it is surely possible that the rhi-
noceros found its way into a hoard of Zhou vessels by chance. 48
After 1845 the vessel became a celebrated piece in China for its long inscription. Al-
most all the major scholars studied it, and some thirteen catalogues from 1845 to 1945
published the inscription. Interestingly, however, the unique stylistic feature of the rhi-
noceros was not mentioned even once in Chinese scholarly commentaries, attesting to
the overwhelming emphasis on epigraphy among traditional Chinese studies of ancient
bronzes, though perhaps some scholars who wrote about the inscription had only an in-
scription rubbing to work with. Ironically, when Avery Brundage purchased this vessel

A Unique Pair: The Bronze Rhinoceros and Its Collector, Avery Brundage 217