396.
A BRONZE ARCHAISTIC VASE, HU
Song/ Yuan dynasty, 13th-14th century
28 cm high
Provenance: Naples, Villa della Floridiana, Museo Duca di Martina, Placido de Sangro (1829-1891) collection.
inv. n. 4849.
The elegant shape of this vase is evidently inspired by archaic ritual vessels from the Shang and Zhou dynasties, from which it differs mainly in the more flattened body.
It reflects the interest in antiquarianism which developed during the Song dynasty, with the formation of important collections of ancient bronzes, among which the one belonged to the Emperor Huizong (1082-1135) that was published in 1123 by Wang Fu in a text entitled Chongxiu Xuanhe bogu tulu (“Drawings and Lists of all the Antiquities stored in the Xuanhe Palace”).
The illustrations of the ancient prototypes provided an inesaurible source of inspiration for artists and artisans. They contributed to the spread of a classical taste with works that combine features clearly derived from the pre-dynastic models with a more contemporary decorative approach.
Furthermore, the shape of this vase reveals undoubtely a strong relationship with ceramics of the Guan type produced in 12th-13th century in imitation of ancient bronzes. See for example the famous example in the National Palace Museum in Taipei which was created as a more economic replacement for an ancient bronze of the same shape on order by the Liqiju (“Bureau of Ritual Vessels”) that supervised the Xiuneisi (“Palace Manteinance Office”) where the admired Guan ware was set up after the court transferred in Hangzhou at the fall of the Northern Song dynasty (Dynastic Renaissance: Art and Culture of the Southern Song Antiquities, Taipei 2010, pp. 13-14 and pp. 50-51, nn. I-2).
In the same period also the kilns of Longquan produced similar high-quality vessels in archaic style destined to the court in the not far Hangzhou, some times characterized by a crackled glaze which try to imitate the features of the much revered Guan and Ge ware.
Respect to these ceramic models, the present bronze vase shows two low relief decorative bands with motifs inspired by archaic bronzes. Furthermore, the upper band is enclosed between two thin friezes with waves which recall similar naturalistically rendered waves seen, for example, on Jingdezhen ‘blue and whites’ porcelain items from the Yuan dynasty.
A vase with a similar shape and a related but richer archaistic decoration is in the Museum für Asiatische Kunst in Cologne (inv. C 2018, 146).
