Printed from Woolley & Wallis

Description

A RARE CHINESE BRONZE 'BOYS' ARROW VASE, TOUHU
MING DYNASTY

The compressed globular body rising from a splayed foot and surmounted by a tall cylindrical neck flanked by two tubular rings, decorated with boys carrying baskets and rings divided by flanges, with a further two figures holding branches and two chilong clambering up the neck, with a paper label for the Finer Collection 'CB 60', 9.5kg, 46.8cm.

Cf. The Field Museum, Chicago, accession no. 117619 for a related 'boys' arrow vase.

明 銅胡人紋貫耳投壺

The game of touhu involved pitching arrows into narrow tubular-necked pots and had been a popular game from about 770 BC. In the Ming dynasty, the game became more widespread and was played by rich merchants and scholars as well as the aristocracy. Wang Ti, active during the Jiajing period, noted about the production of arrow vases in his Touhu yijie (Rules of Playing Touhu): 'Some fancy craftsmen recently also created some unconventional forms of touhu, some can dangle like a swing, some are of exaggerated size, some are with two handles, some even with four!'; see Wang Ti, Touhu yijie, Beijing, p.40. Refer also to Isabelle Lee, ‘Touhu: Three Millennia of the Chinese Arrow Vase and the Game of Pitch-Pot, Transactions of the Oriental Ceramic Society , vol 56, pp. 13-27 for further discussion of the game.

From the Finer Collection of later bronzes and hand warmers.