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Revolving animals in wash basin
August 9, 2009, Sunday
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THIS bronze water vessel from the early Spring and Autumn Period (770-476 BC ) is 45 centimeters in diameter and weighs 12.4 kilograms. It looks like a ding, the three-legged bronze pot for rituals, but was used for washing hands and for aesthetic appreciation.
Zi Zhong Jiang Pan, as the vessel is called, is adorned with horizontal S-shaped animal patterns on the outside wall. Two dragons scramble over the mouth rim, stretching their heads to see the scene inside. They and the two handles are spaced diagonally on the rim.
Inside the vessel, some cast fish, frogs and ducks are poised on pins and can turn around. All the animals seem to come to life when the vessel is filled with water. It still puzzles experts to this day how the pins were fixed on the vessel because it is extremely difficult to infuse pin-sized holes in a clay mode with molten metal.
At the bottom of this bronze ware is an inscription of 32 characters in six lines, saying the vessel was commissioned by an official in the State of Jin (today's Shanxi Province) for his wife surnamed Jiang.
This rare vessel was smuggled out of China in the early 1990s and landed in the hands of a British collector. When Ma Chengyuan, the late Shanghai Museum curator, went to validate the piece, it was still covered in mud. Ma could hardly contain himself, but the owner was asking a formidable price to sell it.
Later, Yip Siu-fu, a low-profile Hong Kong businessman, bought the vessel for HK$11 million and donated it to Shanghai Museum in 1997 on the eve of Hong Kong's handover to Chinese sovereignty. It has since become one of the best assets of the museum.
Zi Zhong Jiang Pan, as the vessel is called, is adorned with horizontal S-shaped animal patterns on the outside wall. Two dragons scramble over the mouth rim, stretching their heads to see the scene inside. They and the two handles are spaced diagonally on the rim.
Inside the vessel, some cast fish, frogs and ducks are poised on pins and can turn around. All the animals seem to come to life when the vessel is filled with water. It still puzzles experts to this day how the pins were fixed on the vessel because it is extremely difficult to infuse pin-sized holes in a clay mode with molten metal.
At the bottom of this bronze ware is an inscription of 32 characters in six lines, saying the vessel was commissioned by an official in the State of Jin (today's Shanxi Province) for his wife surnamed Jiang.
This rare vessel was smuggled out of China in the early 1990s and landed in the hands of a British collector. When Ma Chengyuan, the late Shanghai Museum curator, went to validate the piece, it was still covered in mud. Ma could hardly contain himself, but the owner was asking a formidable price to sell it.
Later, Yip Siu-fu, a low-profile Hong Kong businessman, bought the vessel for HK$11 million and donated it to Shanghai Museum in 1997 on the eve of Hong Kong's handover to Chinese sovereignty. It has since become one of the best assets of the museum.
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