Dobrovits Aladár szerk.: Az Iparművészeti Múzeum Évkönyvei 5. (Budapest, 1962)

HOPP FERENC MÚZEUM - MUSÉE FERENC HOPP - Felvinczi Takáts, Zoltán: Some Notes to the Bronzes of the Chinese Collection. I.

Fig. 20. Girdle-pendant with the relief figure of a dancer surrounded with scrolls. Gilt bronze. China. T'ang-period Fig. 21. Dancer on the calix of a lotus, surrounded by flowers. Painting in gold on the cover of a black lacquered box. Shösöin, Nara. Chinese work. T'ang-period pretentious bronze relief on a clasp I have bought in Tatung (Fig. 16.). The flying geese became an eternal motive of Chinese art. Their first representations we know are of Han. Our bronze ornament may be just of this time or some centuries later as well. I may not come down with it as far as T'ang. Not even with the medal (Fig. 17.), the relief decoration of which is quartered, each quarter being divided in two equal parts, one of them containing the picture of a flying goose and the neighbouring section three stems of grass ( ?). The small ear of this medal, which I bought in Mukden, suggests the destination of the object as an amulet. The broken piece, forming the end of a gilt bronze clasp is an acquisition from Chang-an (Fig. 18.). This plaque has been decorated apparently with the whole figure of a dragon in relief. All that remained of it is the head of the emblematic animal (Fig. 19. b). Its style is akin to a Han relief, the rubbing of which I have seen in the Tsinan Museum and I also acquired such a specimen (Fig. 19.). Debased repetitions of such dragon-heads, with jaws curved upwards are to be found frequently on early middle-age girdle pendants composed in emblematic style, but always on subordinate parts of such trinkets. Pictorial conceptions have found their way to belt ornaments, as we have seen as early as in Han period. Such small compositions became rather frequent in time. I succeded in finding an exquisite piece of gilt bronze girdle pendant (Fig. 20.) with a Buddhist relief. We see on it the dancer, the favourite acolyte of Mandalas, surrounded by scroll-work, related in style to a famous box of the Shösöin, painted in gold on black lacquer (Fig. 21.). The ground of the gilding of our bronze pendant is bluish-black, called in Japan shakudo.