431.
A CLOISONNÉ ENAMEL VASE, FANGHU
Ming dynasty, 17th century
41 cm high
Provenance: Naples, Villa della Floridiana, Museo Duca di Martina, Placido de Sangro (1829-1891) collection.
inv. n. 5241.
Square section, the rounded sides of the body rising from a tapered foot, the shoulder with two gilt copper lion-mask handles with loose rings in their mouth, the borders of the whole vase underlined by a thick gilt brass frame, the exterior enamelled in black, red, yellow, green, blue and white on a turquoise ground, the decoration showing a series of horizontal bands each separated from the other by a thin stripe with small stylized flower heads, the larger band on the body with taotie masks, clouds and ruyi heads beneath a flowers and fruits composition and below a band with chilong dragons and another band with leaves toward the rim, the foot with some of the Eight Buddhist Emblems.
The shape of this vase is inspired by ritual bronze and ceramic vases of the Han dynasty, which exemplify in turn a development of the hu form which shows a bulbous body instead of the square section. The decoration too shows a clear reference to archaic motifs, especially the taotie zoomorphic mask which was a common motif on ritual bronzes from the Shang and Zhou dynasties.
The first mention of the word taotie can be found in the Zuo Zhuan (“The Commentary of Zuo”), a history of China written between 722 and 468 BC, where it was used to describe a gluttonous personage lived during the time of the mythical Yellow Emperor. Its association to decoration of ritual bronzes is mentioned in the “Spring and Autumn Annals” (Lushi Chunqiu), completed around 239 BC by the chancellor Lu Buwei, who wrote the taotie has the power to eat men without swallowing but harming them.
It is interesting to note that a very similar vase was in the collection of the Duke De Morny, a well known collector who lived in Paris in the same years the Duke di Martina resided in France. The Duke De Morny’s fang hu was published in 1863 by Albert Jacquemart, who illustrated the piece in his essay with an etching realized by his son Jules Jacquemart (A. Jacquemart, Collection d’Objets d’Art de M. le Duc de Morny, in “Gazette des Beaux-Arts, 15, 1863, pp. 393-419, plate between pp. 410 and 411).
