1. Home
2. Publications
3. Specialized books

Chinese Bronzes from the Meiyintang Collection (2 VOLUMES IN SLIPCASE)

Christian Deydier

Volume I: Annexe - 157 entries, 231 pages with colour illustrations, ISBN 978 962 7956 86 0 and Volume II - entry 158 to 205, 231 pages with colour illustrations, ISBN 978 962 7956 87 7.

When I was given the honour of being chosen to compile Volume 2 of 'Chinese Bronzes from the Meiyintang Collection', I set myself to this task with the passion and exactness necessary to ensure a work of quality. The Meiyintang Collection of ancient Chinese bronzes, by virtue of the rarity and quality of the pieces of which it is composed, their exceptional provenances and the importance of the publications in which many of them have been recorded, should reasonably be considered the best and most important collection of ancient Chinese bronzes amassed over the past twenty years. While carrying out research on the bronzes for Volume 2, I also came across quite a bit of new information on the bronzes already published in Volume 1 of 'Chinese Bronzes from the Meiyintang Collection'. Thus was I able to trace the provenance of some of these objects from collection to collection, discover the names of the exhibitions in which they had been displayed and, especially, make a list of all the publications in which many of these vessels and/or their inscriptions have been discussed or recorded. Finally, I was able to re-examine the translations of many of the ancient inscriptions on those bronzes, some of which were published at the beginning of the last century in the earliest reference books on this subject. After having gathered all this incredibly meaningful useful information, I felt it important, not to say absolutely necessary, and to publish it all in this 'Annexe', in order to present the public with as complete a catalogue of this exceptional collection of bronzes as possible" excerpt from the Volume I foreword.; "Since the publication of Volume 1 of Chinese Bronzes in the Meiyintang Collection, the collection has expanded and fifty more ritual bronzes have been added to those which have already been published. Many of the new acquisitions take us back to the very origins of bronze- vessel casting in China or, in other words, to the Erlitou cultural period (19th - 16th centuries nc.) in the Xia dynasty and the Erligang period (16th-14th centuries Bc.) at the beginning of the Shang dynasty. As a result of the collector's recently renewed concentration on these early periods, the Meiyintang Collection has been able to acquire several exceptional bronzes of the Erlitou period, such as the extremely rare jiao listed as no. 160 (p. 68) and has also, as a result, now become the most complete collection in private hands of bronze ritual vessels of the Erligang period. The archaic bronze vessels in the Meiyintang Collection, probably the most important private collection of its type in terms of the quality, the rarity and the impeccable provenances of its objects, are a concrete testament to and a visual reminder of the primary importance in Chinese culture of the ancestral cult." excerpt from the Volume II foreword.

E-mail us to order