Eastern Zhou Ritual Bronzes from the Arthur M. Sackler Collections

Eastern Zhou Ritual Bronzes from the Arthur M. Sackler Collections
Author: Jenny F. So
Publisher: Harry N Abrams Incorporated
Total Pages: 524
Release: 1995
Genre: Art
ISBN: 9780810932661

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The supreme art form of ancient China was the bronze ritual vessel. Kings and nobles offered food and drink to their ancestors in spectacular cast bronze containers which served to advertise the owner's wealth and power no less than his piety. Many of the bronzes eventually found their way into the tombs of their owners, where they lay undisturbed for centuries or millennia until accidental discovery or the archaeologist's spade brought them once more to light. The vast collection of Chinese bronzes formed by the late Dr. Arthur M. Sackler ranges over the entire Bronze Age. The bronzes of the Eastern Zhou period, 8th to 3rd century BC, are the subject of this third and concluding volume of the comprehensive catalogue of the collection. In a thorough and up-to-date introduction, Dr. Jenny So, Assistant Curator of Ancient Chinese Art at the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, gives a detailed account of the history of Eastern Zhou bronzes. Particularly valuable is Dr. So's systematic use of the latest archaeological discoveries to trace regional and chronological developments and to study the political context in which bronzes were made and used. An especially valuable supplement to the volume is a major study of bronze bells coauthored by an archaeologist and an acoustical physicist, Professor Lothar von Falkenhausen of UCLA and Professor Thomas D. Rossing of Northern Illinois University. The Sackler Collection includes twenty-one bells, which were employed in the same offering rituals as the bronze vessels. Ninety color plates provide full documentation of the Sackler bronzes and over 560 black-and-white comparative illustrations help to set them in the context providedby archaeological research. Scholarly appendices report elemental composition data on the bronze alloys, lead-isotope ratios, and thermoluminescence dating tests of clay core material.

Art from Ritual

Art from Ritual
Author:
Publisher:
Total Pages: 174
Release: 1983
Genre: Bronzes, Chinese
ISBN:

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Western Zhou Ritaul Bronzes

Western Zhou Ritaul Bronzes
Author: Jessica Rawson
Publisher: Harry N Abrams Incorporated
Total Pages: 776
Release: 1995
Genre: Art
ISBN: 9780810939875

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This set is the second installation in a three-volume catalog of the Sackler collection of ancient Chinese bronzes at Harvard University, undertaken by some of the premier scholars in the field. Robert W. Bagley's Shang Ritual Bronzes in the Arthur M. Sackler Collections (Arthur M. Sackler Foundation, 1987) and Jenny F. So's forthcoming Eastern Zhou Ritual Bronzes from the Arthur M. Sackler Collections complete the set. Rawson's contribution starts with Volume IIA, a survey of Western Zhou (c.1050-771 B.C.) bronze types, with more emphasis on dating of shapes and designs than on the use or meaning of the vessels. A wealth of appendixes include information on archaeological sites, inscriptions, and detailed laboratory analyses of bronze samples. Volume lib is the catalog itself, with a full-page color photograph of each vessel followed by a detailed description and comparisons with relevant pieces from other collections. Although probably not of much interest to the general public, this work gathers a tremendous amount of information for specialists and researchers.