上海博物馆 青銅器

choi

Lee Lawrence, The Clark Gets the Bronze; The first of many collaborations with the Chinese museum. Wall Street Journal, Aug 12, 2014
online.wsj.com/articles/cast-for-eternity-at-the-clark-art-institute-1407790500
(museum review on Cast for Eternity; Ancient ritual bronzes from the Shanghai Museum. The Clark Art Institute, through Sept 21, 2014)

Note:
(a) Cast for Eternity; Ancient ritual bronzes from the Shanghai Museum. July 4-Sept 21, 2014.
www.clarkart.edu/Exhibition/Cast-for-Eternity
(Dien culture)
(i) Dian Kingdom  滇國
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dian_Kingdom
(4th century BC–109 BC, when Emperor Wu of Han sent a military expedition to defeat Dian)
(ii) bronze  青铜

(b) “About a decade before he and wife, Francine, began collecting European and American art, Sterling Clark trekked through northwest China at the head of a scientific expedition.”
(i) Clark Art Institute
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clark_Art_Institute
(founders: Robert Sterling Clark [1877-1956], and his wife, Francine; the Institute opened to the public in 1955)

Quote: “After numerous adventures in the Far East, Sterling settled in Paris in 1911 and used a considerable fortune inherited from his grandfather (a principal in the Singer Sewing Machine Company) to begin a private art collection. Francine joined him in collecting after they married in 1919.

(ii) Shanghai Museum  上海博物馆
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shanghai_Museum
(Established 1952)

(c) “the most recent, a second-to-first-century B.C. cylindrical container for cowrie shells used as currency, features three-dimensional sculptures: Two tigers slink up its sides toward yaks crowding atop the lid. Six of them circle a central platform where a seventh beast looks out, neck outstretched, horns tilted back. It takes little imagination to hear his bellow.”

cowry
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cowry
(Cowry or cowrie, plural cowries, is the common name for a group of small to large sea snails, marine gastropod molluscs in the family Cypraeidae)

(d) “the recently opened Tadao ANDŌ building” of the Institute

安藤 忠雄
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tadao_Ando
(1941- )

(e) “The plethora of shapes immediately stands out, from variations on rounded pots and vases to an elongated flaring beaker (a gu), a houselike container for wine (fangyi) and a squared-off oval food dish (xu) with legs in the shape of big-headed humans.”
(i) gu  觚
zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/觚
(ii) fangyi
(A) fangyi. Encyclopaedia Britannica, undated
www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/201517/fangyi
(“type of Chinese bronze vessel in the form of a small hut or granary”: photo)
(B) 饕餮文方彜. 根津美術館, undated (“西周時代 前10世紀 青銅 1個 高26.1cm [90094]”)
www.nezu-muse.or.jp/jp/collection/detail.php?id=90094
(“祭祀に用いる彝器(いき)”)
both traditional and simplified Chinese: 方彝
* Nezu Museum  根津 美術館
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nezu_Museum
(“The museum houses the private collection of Nezu Kaichirō 根津 嘉一郎 (1860–1940). The museum opened to the public in 1940 and escaped the destruction suffered by the estate property in the bombing of May 1945”)
* The Chinese pronunciation of 嘉 is “ka.”
* What does “estate property” in the second sentence mean, I have no idea. But see
estate (n): “a landed property usually with a large house on it”
www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/estate
I can guess, though, with the help of Japanese Wikipedia for this museum: "藤井斉成会有鄰館、大倉集古館、白鶴美術館、大原美術館などとともに、第二次世界大戦以前からの歴史をもつ、日本では数少ない美術館のひとつである。"

translation: Along with few other museums, [Nezu Museum] is one whose building predates World War II.
(iii) xu  盨  (go to images.google.com to see what it looks like)
(iv) 觚, 方彝 and 盨 were in 中原, NOT 滇.


(f) “Among the highlights are a late Shang wine vessel with several kinds of surface decoration, including thin relief lines, sculptural buffalo heads and abstracted taotie 饕餮 that seem to vibrate with repeating swirls and spirals; a 10th-to-ninth-century BC ling, a large and rare type of lidded wine jug with a striking feather- or scalelike pattern”
(i) Taotie 饕餮
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taotie
(section 2 Etymology: the first known occurrence of this word is in Zuo Zhuan 左傳, where it is used to refer to one of the four evil creatures of the world 四凶
(ii) The “ling”  is possibly 鱗文 in Japan/鳞纹 in China