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D. J. FINN, S.J.
p. 246), and has been printed as a line-block, on Plate 33 it appears as photo- graphed directly and printed as a tone block. Even thus the actual state of the piece does not appear very well. But for anyone accustomed to these ceramics the actual sherd immediately suggests bronze. Its colour is a black slatish-grey
and it appears as if freely modelled. M. Pelliot exclaimed poterie des seigneurs on seeing the piece and when I offered to compare a Chinese bronze from the Chin Shih so, he said that he had no need of the book-it was too obvious. Fragment 16 was found at site 26 (which is on the mainland) but Lamma has given fragment 17 with another similar piece and these are exactly the same pattern but not so deeply modelled. Now it is this modelling that must first be felt and understood. Figure 16 eliminates the depth and the double-F appears very markedly; try in looking at Pl. 33 to see the raised ground between the "double F" incuse demarcations and realise that this is the real pattern. It is a kind of triquetra on top of a
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The Hong Kong Naturalist.
11.
Vol. III, Nos. 3 and 4.
Figure 2.
A
B
C
Sketch of unit details of pattern; C, fragment 16; A, its mirror image; B, bronze bell of figure 3.
"
trunk-stem.
One might describe it as group of three bird-heads divergent from one stoutish neck or as an inept sketch of a three-bladed electric fan (see text figure 2, C and A). Many of the readers will say, "I can't see: it is all your imagination.' Well, I know that the reproduction because of the difficulties of lighting on the almost black colour (a kind of buccharo ware) makes recognition very difficult but I can adduce one argument to confirm my point. The surface between the deep depressions is not flat but is modelled with a distinct rim projecting above the normal level and run- ning along the edge of the depressions thus emphasizing the surface spaces as the motive of the ornament; figure 3 shows the same rim on the ornament of a bronze bell. The subsequent history of the motive is the change of emphasis by which the partitions became the chief motive, a change which technically follows easily upon the taking of the cast of this pattern in any plastic material, even in sand or flour (as I found by actual experiment).
Study of the Han bronzes inlaid with gold or silver suggests that the real explanation lies in inlay-technique which underlies this motive. The head" shaped members are admirable for securing a hold because of the encircling fang-like tips. Our pots possibly were counting on an inlay of glaze or pigment. In the Han volume of (11), see Plates 12, G; 46, A and B; 47; 115, B and F. Note also the actual "Double-F effect in the in laid bird figure, Plate 116, A.
*
If this be realised, it then follows that the total pattern on the vase is made up of approximately square pattern-blocks, (see figure 2) repeating the unit of the motive. We are now in a position to compare a bronze bell once belonging to the Emperor Kien Lung and published in his well known Hsi Ch'ing Ku Chien (6), k. 37 p. 21: it is reproduced in figure 3 and its unit
The Hong Kong Naturalist.
13.
Plate 37.
Fragments 11, 12, 13, 14 and 15.
12.
14.
15.
21