.jpg?w=1)
.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
The "Min" Fanglei
A Masterwork of Late Shang or Early Western Zhou Bronze Casting
Bronze ritual vessels produced in China in the late Shang and Early Western Zhou periods-in the twelfth and eleventh centuries BC-rank among the most beautiful, most accomplished, and most technically sophisticated examples of bronze casting ever seen. The ritual vessels' bold forms, brilliant designs, and perfect casting reflect both the sophisticated aesthetic sensibilities and the technological prowess of early China, just as they also convey insight into the culture that produced them.
Arguably the largest wine storage jar known from ancient China, the present magnificent fanglei embodies all of the characteristics associated with the finest and most impressive bronzes from the late Shang and early Western Zhou periods. Its massive scale, robust, tapering form, forceful decoration with clearly defined motifs and superbly articulated details, combined with casting so flawless as to demonstrate consummate mastery of the bronze caster's art produce a truly phenomenal display of aesthetic inventiveness and casting proficiency.
Bronze casting came fully into its own during the Shang dynasty (c. 1600 BC- c. 1050 BC) with the production of sacral vessels intended for use in ceremonies honoring the spirits of deceased ancestors. These include vessels for food and wine as well as vessels for water; those for food and wine, the types most frequently encountered, group themselves into storage and presentation vessels, heating and cooking vessels, and serving vessels. Vessels for storage and presentation, such as this majestic fanglei wine vessel, typically assume one of a variety of jar forms.
Containers for wine, lei vessels were produced over a relatively short period during the late Shang and early Western Zhou periods (12th-11th century BC). They may be either circular or square in cross section, the latter termed fanglei, or "square lei." Those of square section with strong casting are among the rarest, most imposing, and most majestic of bronzes. Of the published examples, this massive fanglei, at 63.6 cm. high, appears to be the largest, not to mention the broadest through the shoulders as well. Other well-known examples include one without a cover in the Shanghai Museum (53 cm. high), published numerous times, including in Wen Fong, ed., The Great Bronze Age of China, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1980, no. 27 (Fig. 1); one with cover in the St. Louis Art Museum (62.7 cm. high), S.D. Owyoung in Ancient Chinese Bronzes in the Saint Louis Art Museum, St. Louis, 1997, no. 24 (Fig. 2); one with cover in the Palace Museum, Beijing, (62.2 cm. high), Zhongguo meishu quanji; gongyi meishu; qingtongqi, vol. 4, Beijing, 1987, no. 126; one with cover in the Fujita Art Museum, Osaka (54.5 cm. high), Exhibition of Eastern Art, Tokyo National Museum, 1968, p. 67, no. 275; one with cover in the Sumitomo Collection, Kyoto (62.7 cm. high), W. Watson, Art of Dynastic China, New York, 1981, no. 225 (Fig. 3); and one with cover in the Nezu Institute of Fine Arts, Tokyo, (64.5 cm. high), Catalogue of Selected Masterpieces from the Nezu Collections of Decorative Art, Nezu Institute of Fine Arts, Tokyo, 2001, no. 15 (Fig. 4).
Fanglei, or square lei, appear among bronzes of thirteenth-century BC date found at the Shang capital of Anyang, Henan province, such as the pair (Fu Hao fanglei) from Anyang Tomb No. 5, published in Henan chutu Shang Zhou qingtongqi, vol. 1, Beijing, 1981, no. 150.(1) Even so, it was during the twelfth and eleventh centuries BC that the fanglei's form came to be interpreted more boldly, its profile further animated through the addition of prominent, sometimes hooked, flanges at the corners, and its decoration cast in higher relief. The combination of massive size and striking decoration imbues this unique vessel with imposing presence.
All of these fanglei are published as either Shang or early Western Zhou in date, and all display a similar arrangement of decoration, though the decorative elements vary from vessel to vessel: a large taotie mask on each face of the lower body below either dragons or long-tailed birds; dragons on the shoulder; and birds or dragons on the neck and foot. All have three dragon-head-surmounted handles: two placed one each on opposing shoulders, and a third placed low on the body of one side between the opposed-shoulder handles, the large, low-set handle presumably to assist in pouring wine from the vessel. And each vessel has a mask cast in high relief on each broad shoulder. Of those published, the only other fangle with similarly hooked flanges at the corners and on the sides is the St. Louis Museum vessel, though those on the St. Louis vessel are neither so assertive nor so flamboyant as those on the present vessel. One of the unusual features of the present fanglei are the horns of the dragon masks cast in high relief on the shoulder and handles, which are formed by coiled dragons, a feature also seen on a massive bronze ding, dated to the early Western Zhou, from Shijiayuan, Chunhua, Shaanxi province, illustrated in Zhongguo qingtongqi quanji, vol. 6, Western Zhou 2, p. 119, no. 122, and discussed on p. 38.
Other vessels with similarly flamboyant hooked flanges include a fangyi wine vessel dated to the late Shang to Early Western Zhou period in the collection of the Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge (Fig. 5); and a ding food vessel in the Avery Brundage Collection, Asian Art Museum, San Francisco, published in Ren-Yvon d'Argenc Bronze Vessels of Ancient China in the Avery Brundage Collection, San Francisco, 1977, no. 28. The Harvard fangyi and Brundage ding vessels share a decorative feature - vertical ribs - not seen on the present fanglei.
It has been suggested that a bronze cover with similar cast decoration in the Hunan Provincial Museum, Changsha, may be the cover for the present fanglei. The inscription cast inside this cover is similar to that on the present vessel, but incorporates two additional characters, and reads, Mintianquan zuo Fuji Zunyi. The cover was most recently included in the exhibition, Along the Yangzi River: Regional Culture of the Bronze Art in China, China Institute Gallery, New York, 27 January - 11 June 2011, no.14, and was previously illustrated together with the inscription in Hunan sheng wenwu tulu, Changsha,1964, p. 6 (1).
The most important decorative motif on vessels from the Shang and Western Zhou periods is the so-called taotie mask, which generally boasts a ferocious feline-like face with large, C-shaped horns, small heart-shaped ears, bulging eyes, and bared fangs that descend from the upper jaw. By contrast, the lower jaw is never represented, though the triangular element that descends from the mouth of this fanglei's principal taotie masks might be read as a tongue. Appearing immediately on either side of the face, the animal's body has been reduced to a vertically oriented series of linked barbs that echo the hooked flanges at the vessel's corners, uniting form and decoration and further animating the whole. Like the taotie masks on the fanglei's main faces, the small striding dragons and long-tailed birds that inhabit the subsidiary registers rise in relief against an intricate background of small, squared spirals known as leiwen, these patterns as intricately and perfectly cast as the principal decorative elements themselves. It is possible that many, even all, of these motifs had meaning for the people of Shang and Zhou; in the absence of written records detailing possible meanings, however, we cannot know what symbolism those motifs might have held, if any. Speculation abounds, but precise identification necessarily must await discovery of hard evidence from the people who created and used the vessels.
In terms of casting, unlike the artisans of most early civilizations, who employed the lost-wax, or cire perdue, technique in casting bronzes, Chinese foundrymen of the Shang and Zhou periods utilized the so-called piece-mold casting technique in producing their ritual vessels. Those early Chinese workers first produced a clay model in the shape of the desired vessel, carving-or, in some instances, stamping-the decoration into the model's moist surfaces, after which the model was fired. Casting molds were prepared by pressing moist clay against the fired model; after all had been prepared, the mold segments were fired. Once the mold segments had been properly registered and joined together around an inner core - the "inner" and "outer" molds separated by small, flat pieces of bronze called chaplets - the assembled mold was tightly bound together and inverted, so that the vessel foot pointed upward and the vessel lip faced downward, after which the molten bronze was introduced through sprues, or tubular passageways; air within the mold and any gases escaping from the molten bronze vented though a corresponding set of flues. Once the mass had cooled, the mold was removed, releasing the bronze vessel. The inversion of the mold ensured that the bronze would reach the very bottom of the mold, so that there would be no bubble flaws on the lip, neck, or shoulder of the finished vessel, the most readily visible portions; any bubbles that did interrupt the surfaces likely would appear as casting flaws on the foot.
The advantage of the piece-mold technique is that, unlike the lost-wax technique, it afforded the Shang and Zhou bronze casters direct access to the interior faces of the casting molds, which allowed them to correct any flaws in the decorative designs and perhaps even to embellish them further, which permitted precision casting of very fine design elements, such as the intricately patterned leiwen or the linear embellishment on the relief elements. Of course, in completing the casting process, adhering mold fragments had to be cleaned from the finished vessels and their surfaces had to be polished and, in some instances, touched up a bit. What must be kept firmly in mind, however, is that the decoration was integrally cast with the vessels themselves, rather than chased or chiseled into the surface after casting. The very intricate surface decoration of this magnificent fanglei wine jar, from its superbly patterned leiwen to its bold relief masks, dragons, and birds, perfectly illustrates the sophistication of Chinese casting methods; in fact, they stand in marked contrast to the often smooth, minimally decorated, or even unembellished, surfaces of bronzes produced with the lost-wax technique.
Apart from their function as sacral vessels and apart from the information they convey about early Chinese culture, beliefs, and funerary practices, we admire Chinese bronzes for their inventive shapes, bold decoration, and precise casting. In fact, it is the precision of the casting, from the majestic vessels themselves to their intricately embellished surfaces, that marks Chinese bronze ritual vessels as truly and wondrously exceptional. Even today it is difficult to cast bronze with such precision, a telling comment on the exceptionally high level of technological sophistication present already in the earliest phases of Chinese historical development.
Robert D. Mowry
Senior Consultant
Christie's
Alan J. Dworsky Curator of Chinese Art Emeritus
Harvard Art Museums
___________________________________________________________________
1. Tomb No. 5 at Anyang was that of Lady Fu Hao, a principal wife of the Shang dynasty king Wu Ding (r. c. 1250-c. 1192 BC). Lady Fu Hao was a powerful figure who gave birth to a royal prince and served as a military leader and apparently led troops into battle; her tomb yielded more than 2000 luxury items including 468 ritual bronzes. For information on Lady Fu Hao, see: Patricia Buckley Ebrey, The Cambridge Illustrated History of China (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press), 1996, pp. 26-27. For information on the tomb of Lady Fu Hao and its archaeological investigation, see the excavation report: Zhongguo shehui kexue yuan kaogu yanjiusuo [Institute of Archaeology, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences], ed., Yinxu Fuhao Mu [Tomb of Lady Hao at Yinxu in Anyang], 1st edition (Beijing: Wenwu chubanshe: Xinhua shudian Beijing faxing suo faxing), 1984, in Chinese, with English abstract.
A Masterwork of Late Shang or Early Western Zhou Bronze Casting
Bronze ritual vessels produced in China in the late Shang and Early Western Zhou periods-in the twelfth and eleventh centuries BC-rank among the most beautiful, most accomplished, and most technically sophisticated examples of bronze casting ever seen. The ritual vessels' bold forms, brilliant designs, and perfect casting reflect both the sophisticated aesthetic sensibilities and the technological prowess of early China, just as they also convey insight into the culture that produced them.
Arguably the largest wine storage jar known from ancient China, the present magnificent fanglei embodies all of the characteristics associated with the finest and most impressive bronzes from the late Shang and early Western Zhou periods. Its massive scale, robust, tapering form, forceful decoration with clearly defined motifs and superbly articulated details, combined with casting so flawless as to demonstrate consummate mastery of the bronze caster's art produce a truly phenomenal display of aesthetic inventiveness and casting proficiency.
Bronze casting came fully into its own during the Shang dynasty (c. 1600 BC- c. 1050 BC) with the production of sacral vessels intended for use in ceremonies honoring the spirits of deceased ancestors. These include vessels for food and wine as well as vessels for water; those for food and wine, the types most frequently encountered, group themselves into storage and presentation vessels, heating and cooking vessels, and serving vessels. Vessels for storage and presentation, such as this majestic fanglei wine vessel, typically assume one of a variety of jar forms.
Containers for wine, lei vessels were produced over a relatively short period during the late Shang and early Western Zhou periods (12th-11th century BC). They may be either circular or square in cross section, the latter termed fanglei, or "square lei." Those of square section with strong casting are among the rarest, most imposing, and most majestic of bronzes. Of the published examples, this massive fanglei, at 63.6 cm. high, appears to be the largest, not to mention the broadest through the shoulders as well. Other well-known examples include one without a cover in the Shanghai Museum (53 cm. high), published numerous times, including in Wen Fong, ed., The Great Bronze Age of China, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1980, no. 27 (Fig. 1); one with cover in the St. Louis Art Museum (62.7 cm. high), S.D. Owyoung in Ancient Chinese Bronzes in the Saint Louis Art Museum, St. Louis, 1997, no. 24 (Fig. 2); one with cover in the Palace Museum, Beijing, (62.2 cm. high), Zhongguo meishu quanji; gongyi meishu; qingtongqi, vol. 4, Beijing, 1987, no. 126; one with cover in the Fujita Art Museum, Osaka (54.5 cm. high), Exhibition of Eastern Art, Tokyo National Museum, 1968, p. 67, no. 275; one with cover in the Sumitomo Collection, Kyoto (62.7 cm. high), W. Watson, Art of Dynastic China, New York, 1981, no. 225 (Fig. 3); and one with cover in the Nezu Institute of Fine Arts, Tokyo, (64.5 cm. high), Catalogue of Selected Masterpieces from the Nezu Collections of Decorative Art, Nezu Institute of Fine Arts, Tokyo, 2001, no. 15 (Fig. 4).
Fanglei, or square lei, appear among bronzes of thirteenth-century BC date found at the Shang capital of Anyang, Henan province, such as the pair (Fu Hao fanglei) from Anyang Tomb No. 5, published in Henan chutu Shang Zhou qingtongqi, vol. 1, Beijing, 1981, no. 150.(1) Even so, it was during the twelfth and eleventh centuries BC that the fanglei's form came to be interpreted more boldly, its profile further animated through the addition of prominent, sometimes hooked, flanges at the corners, and its decoration cast in higher relief. The combination of massive size and striking decoration imbues this unique vessel with imposing presence.
All of these fanglei are published as either Shang or early Western Zhou in date, and all display a similar arrangement of decoration, though the decorative elements vary from vessel to vessel: a large taotie mask on each face of the lower body below either dragons or long-tailed birds; dragons on the shoulder; and birds or dragons on the neck and foot. All have three dragon-head-surmounted handles: two placed one each on opposing shoulders, and a third placed low on the body of one side between the opposed-shoulder handles, the large, low-set handle presumably to assist in pouring wine from the vessel. And each vessel has a mask cast in high relief on each broad shoulder. Of those published, the only other fangle with similarly hooked flanges at the corners and on the sides is the St. Louis Museum vessel, though those on the St. Louis vessel are neither so assertive nor so flamboyant as those on the present vessel. One of the unusual features of the present fanglei are the horns of the dragon masks cast in high relief on the shoulder and handles, which are formed by coiled dragons, a feature also seen on a massive bronze ding, dated to the early Western Zhou, from Shijiayuan, Chunhua, Shaanxi province, illustrated in Zhongguo qingtongqi quanji, vol. 6, Western Zhou 2, p. 119, no. 122, and discussed on p. 38.
Other vessels with similarly flamboyant hooked flanges include a fangyi wine vessel dated to the late Shang to Early Western Zhou period in the collection of the Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge (Fig. 5); and a ding food vessel in the Avery Brundage Collection, Asian Art Museum, San Francisco, published in Ren-Yvon d'Argenc Bronze Vessels of Ancient China in the Avery Brundage Collection, San Francisco, 1977, no. 28. The Harvard fangyi and Brundage ding vessels share a decorative feature - vertical ribs - not seen on the present fanglei.
It has been suggested that a bronze cover with similar cast decoration in the Hunan Provincial Museum, Changsha, may be the cover for the present fanglei. The inscription cast inside this cover is similar to that on the present vessel, but incorporates two additional characters, and reads, Mintianquan zuo Fuji Zunyi. The cover was most recently included in the exhibition, Along the Yangzi River: Regional Culture of the Bronze Art in China, China Institute Gallery, New York, 27 January - 11 June 2011, no.14, and was previously illustrated together with the inscription in Hunan sheng wenwu tulu, Changsha,1964, p. 6 (1).
The most important decorative motif on vessels from the Shang and Western Zhou periods is the so-called taotie mask, which generally boasts a ferocious feline-like face with large, C-shaped horns, small heart-shaped ears, bulging eyes, and bared fangs that descend from the upper jaw. By contrast, the lower jaw is never represented, though the triangular element that descends from the mouth of this fanglei's principal taotie masks might be read as a tongue. Appearing immediately on either side of the face, the animal's body has been reduced to a vertically oriented series of linked barbs that echo the hooked flanges at the vessel's corners, uniting form and decoration and further animating the whole. Like the taotie masks on the fanglei's main faces, the small striding dragons and long-tailed birds that inhabit the subsidiary registers rise in relief against an intricate background of small, squared spirals known as leiwen, these patterns as intricately and perfectly cast as the principal decorative elements themselves. It is possible that many, even all, of these motifs had meaning for the people of Shang and Zhou; in the absence of written records detailing possible meanings, however, we cannot know what symbolism those motifs might have held, if any. Speculation abounds, but precise identification necessarily must await discovery of hard evidence from the people who created and used the vessels.
In terms of casting, unlike the artisans of most early civilizations, who employed the lost-wax, or cire perdue, technique in casting bronzes, Chinese foundrymen of the Shang and Zhou periods utilized the so-called piece-mold casting technique in producing their ritual vessels. Those early Chinese workers first produced a clay model in the shape of the desired vessel, carving-or, in some instances, stamping-the decoration into the model's moist surfaces, after which the model was fired. Casting molds were prepared by pressing moist clay against the fired model; after all had been prepared, the mold segments were fired. Once the mold segments had been properly registered and joined together around an inner core - the "inner" and "outer" molds separated by small, flat pieces of bronze called chaplets - the assembled mold was tightly bound together and inverted, so that the vessel foot pointed upward and the vessel lip faced downward, after which the molten bronze was introduced through sprues, or tubular passageways; air within the mold and any gases escaping from the molten bronze vented though a corresponding set of flues. Once the mass had cooled, the mold was removed, releasing the bronze vessel. The inversion of the mold ensured that the bronze would reach the very bottom of the mold, so that there would be no bubble flaws on the lip, neck, or shoulder of the finished vessel, the most readily visible portions; any bubbles that did interrupt the surfaces likely would appear as casting flaws on the foot.
The advantage of the piece-mold technique is that, unlike the lost-wax technique, it afforded the Shang and Zhou bronze casters direct access to the interior faces of the casting molds, which allowed them to correct any flaws in the decorative designs and perhaps even to embellish them further, which permitted precision casting of very fine design elements, such as the intricately patterned leiwen or the linear embellishment on the relief elements. Of course, in completing the casting process, adhering mold fragments had to be cleaned from the finished vessels and their surfaces had to be polished and, in some instances, touched up a bit. What must be kept firmly in mind, however, is that the decoration was integrally cast with the vessels themselves, rather than chased or chiseled into the surface after casting. The very intricate surface decoration of this magnificent fanglei wine jar, from its superbly patterned leiwen to its bold relief masks, dragons, and birds, perfectly illustrates the sophistication of Chinese casting methods; in fact, they stand in marked contrast to the often smooth, minimally decorated, or even unembellished, surfaces of bronzes produced with the lost-wax technique.
Apart from their function as sacral vessels and apart from the information they convey about early Chinese culture, beliefs, and funerary practices, we admire Chinese bronzes for their inventive shapes, bold decoration, and precise casting. In fact, it is the precision of the casting, from the majestic vessels themselves to their intricately embellished surfaces, that marks Chinese bronze ritual vessels as truly and wondrously exceptional. Even today it is difficult to cast bronze with such precision, a telling comment on the exceptionally high level of technological sophistication present already in the earliest phases of Chinese historical development.
Robert D. Mowry
Senior Consultant
Christie's
Alan J. Dworsky Curator of Chinese Art Emeritus
Harvard Art Museums
___________________________________________________________________
1. Tomb No. 5 at Anyang was that of Lady Fu Hao, a principal wife of the Shang dynasty king Wu Ding (r. c. 1250-c. 1192 BC). Lady Fu Hao was a powerful figure who gave birth to a royal prince and served as a military leader and apparently led troops into battle; her tomb yielded more than 2000 luxury items including 468 ritual bronzes. For information on Lady Fu Hao, see: Patricia Buckley Ebrey, The Cambridge Illustrated History of China (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press), 1996, pp. 26-27. For information on the tomb of Lady Fu Hao and its archaeological investigation, see the excavation report: Zhongguo shehui kexue yuan kaogu yanjiusuo [Institute of Archaeology, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences], ed., Yinxu Fuhao Mu [Tomb of Lady Hao at Yinxu in Anyang], 1st edition (Beijing: Wenwu chubanshe: Xinhua shudian Beijing faxing suo faxing), 1984, in Chinese, with English abstract.