397.
A BRONZE ARCHAISTIC VASE, HU
Song/ Yuan dynasty, 12th-14th century
14 cm high
Provenance: Naples, Villa della Floridiana, Museo Duca di Martina, Placido de Sangro (1829-1891) collection.
inv. n. 4848.
The shape of this vase – with long and straight neck and compressed globular body – derives from hu-type vessels from the Han dynasty; the horned dragon’s head handles are instead a typical later feature.
These archaic models were very popular during the Song dynasty, when a revival for ancient bronzes widely spread with the formation of large collections, some times published in illustrated catalogues.
These images served as a source of inspiration not only for bronzes but also for ceramic.
The hu shape was for example in the repertory of Longquan kilns. Respect to the bronze item here discussed, the piece in the Chicago Art Institute (inv. 1941.596) has a globular body and an ornamental ring attached to each of the handles. Movable rings can be seen also in the bronze specimen in the Clague collection (R.D. Mowry, China’s Renaissance in Bronze. The Robert H. Clague Collection of Later Chinese Bronzes 1100-1900, exhibition catalogue, Phoenix 1993, n. 6; another similar vase is in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London: R. Kerr, Later Chinese Bronzes, London 1990, p. 25, fig. 14), which in turn presents a decoration very similar to that on the vase here discussed, with the archaic motifs of stylized birds and animals on a leiwen ground, arranged on the neck in four vertical parallel blade-shaped bands and in horizontal friezes on the body and the foot. This decorative scheme characterize also a hu shaped vase in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (inv. 2021.294) which has tubular handles, also dated to the same period, late 12th-13th century.
