An archaistic gold and silver-inlaid bronze Hu-form vase, Song dynasty | 宋 銅錯金銀龍紋壺

Canadian Private Collection. 

Christie's New York, 13th September 2018, lot 1260.

加拿大私人收藏

紐約佳士得2018年9月13日，編號1260

Arranged across ten horizontal registers, the design of the present hu is composed of pairs of symmetrically arranged dragons, each rendered in a curvilinear style with the arched bodies raised on all four limbs, inlaid in silver and gold. In both its form and inlaid design, the present vessel is based on an Eastern Zhou dynasty ritual bronze prototype, specifically a small group of vessels with geometrically arranged designs of pairs of birds, felines and deer, inlaid with copper. The group was studied in detail by Charles B. Weber and discussed in Chinese Pictorial Bronze Vessels of the Late Chou Period, Ascona, 1968, where the author suggests that this type of decoration originated from Huixian, Henan province from the 6th into the early 5th century BC. 

The vessel belongs firmly in the Song dynasty (960-1279) tradition of antiquarianism, and reflects the fashion at the time for faithfully reproducing archaic bronze ritual vessels from the earlier Shang and Zhou dynasties. During the Song dynasty, China experienced an explosion of interest in the past and the period stands out for its fascination with the material remnants of antiquity. Ancient objects were eagerly collected and studied by collectors as well as the imperial court. A large body of texts and catalogues devoted to documenting and interpreting artifacts from the past were produced and disseminated; and the quest for antiquity generated a wide range of cultural production during the latter part of the Song dynasty.

A number of Eastern Zhou vessels of similar design are preserved in important museum collections worldwide, including one reportedly found at Luoyang, now in the Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto (accession no. 933.12.66), illustrated in Jenny So, Eastern Zhou Ritual Bronzes from the Arthur M. Sackler Collections, New York, 1995, fig. 44.1; one in the National Gallery of Asian Art, Washington. D.C., given by Arthur Sackler, illustrated in ibid., pl. 44; and another from the Winthrop Collection, now in the Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge (accession no 1943.52.121.A-B.), illustrated in Chen Mengjia, Yin Zhou qingtongqi fenlei tulu [A corpus of Chinese bronzes in American Collections], Tokyo, 1977, pl. A725. Line drawings of other vessels in this group in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, the Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, Fujii Yurinkan, Kyoto and the Avery Brundage Collection at the Asian Museum, San Francisco, are illustrated in Weber, op. cit., figs 36-37 a-c. Similar copper-inlaid designs are also found on Eastern Zhou bronzes of other forms, such as a dou and cover excavated at Henan, Gushi Hougudui M1, illustrated in So, op. cit., p. 37.

Whilst Song dynasty interpretations of this type are rare, compare also a silver and gold-inlaid hu in the British Museum, illustrated in Daisy Lion-Goldschmidt and Jean-Claude Moreau-Gobard, Chinese Art: Bronze, Jade, Sculpture, Ceramics, New York, 1980, pl. 56, and another, also attributed to the Song dynasty after a Warring States prototype, sold at Christie's New York, 18th September 2014, lot 1016.