Ethnographic Arms & Armour - View Single Post

Philip · 20th June 2010, 07:16 AM

Gentlemen,
Nothing about this piece really "adds up". First off, this "Certificate of Authenticity" is issued by a merchant's association in Hong Kong. Not by a legitimate and accredited museum, or the Ministry of Culture but by a ... (ahem!) group of guys who are in the business of selling antiques, tshatshkes, curios, and the like to whomever would buy them. In the Shoppers' Paradise of the Orient, no less. Yuanzhumin has hit it on the head in his post: this document is a pot that won't hold water.

The shape of the blade has no relation to any jian which I have seen from the Han Dynasty onward. The notable reduction in width as it approaches the rather acute tip is a contour that is taken from the classic bronze swords of the Zhou Dynasty's Warring States Period. Yet this blade is made of iron or steel, and has a simple lozenge cross-section (as is the case of jian made during the medieval and late imperial periods), without the complex bevels, sunken panels, and ridgelines in relief that are characteristic of the bronze blades of classical antiquity. The fellow who conceived this blade tried to cover the span of history in one blade and as Genghis Cohen might have said, "me ken nisht zitsn af tsvey shtuln mit eyn tokhes".

The fittings are likewise a stylistic mishmosh. There are these gilt bands with archaistic elements in relief, as seen on Shang and Zhou bronzes. The chape is patterned after those on jian scabbards from the Zhou and Han periods. Next to the gilded elements is silverwork with motifs similar to those seen on Tibetan objects (such as knife-sheaths, tinder-pouches, bowls, pitchers, etc.), with the characteristic turquoises and corals.

I first saw these in Hong Kong in the 1970s, shopkeepers all said at that time that these were "Mongolian knives and swords". One problem -- in all of the period photos I've seen depicting Mongolia and its people, not one of these swords shows up. The Los Angeles County Museum of Art has a single-edged example which is captioned as "Tibetan" in the display cabinet. Again, an exhaustive hunt for documentary ethnographic photos, or provenanced examples in museums, has turned up zilch. And interestingly, nothing remotely similar was included in the definitive exhibition "Warriors of the Himalayas" mounted by the Metropolitan Mus. of Art in 2006 using material from collections in several countries.

These are curio items, composites made of associated materials : antique jades and other hardstones of varying age, blades which were either freshly made (usually quite crudely) or recycled from broken antique Chinese and Japanese swords, and silver parts crafted for the purpose. It's believed that most of these came from Beijing. Silversmiths there were familiar with Tibetan styles of silverwork because a fair amount of the metalwork used by Tibetans was in fact made in China for the export trade.

Some of these sword-like objects are "fairly old" because I've seen a few which have a provenance of sorts -- estate pieces traceable to military or diplomatic service (usually as gifts to US personnel in China before or during WW II). One piece of this sort I remember seeing at a gun show was a jian that had virtually no patina to speak of (having been well-stored in a gun case for years) and fake Qianlong reign marks on the blade that were something of a bad joke. I also saw brand-new ones for sale at the Beijing "Friendship Stores" in 1979 and '81, and similar albeit poorer-quality ones offered for sale in Shanhaiguan in 1998.

20th June 2010, 07:16 AM	#15
Philip Member Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: California Posts: 1,036	It all depends on how you define "old", I guess Gentlemen, Nothing about this piece really "adds up". First off, this "Certificate of Authenticity" is issued by a merchant's association in Hong Kong. Not by a legitimate and accredited museum, or the Ministry of Culture but by a ... (ahem!) group of guys who are in the business of selling antiques, tshatshkes, curios, and the like to whomever would buy them. In the Shoppers' Paradise of the Orient, no less. Yuanzhumin has hit it on the head in his post: this document is a pot that won't hold water. The shape of the blade has no relation to any jian which I have seen from the Han Dynasty onward. The notable reduction in width as it approaches the rather acute tip is a contour that is taken from the classic bronze swords of the Zhou Dynasty's Warring States Period. Yet this blade is made of iron or steel, and has a simple lozenge cross-section (as is the case of jian made during the medieval and late imperial periods), without the complex bevels, sunken panels, and ridgelines in relief that are characteristic of the bronze blades of classical antiquity. The fellow who conceived this blade tried to cover the span of history in one blade and as Genghis Cohen might have said, "me ken nisht zitsn af tsvey shtuln mit eyn tokhes". The fittings are likewise a stylistic mishmosh. There are these gilt bands with archaistic elements in relief, as seen on Shang and Zhou bronzes. The chape is patterned after those on jian scabbards from the Zhou and Han periods. Next to the gilded elements is silverwork with motifs similar to those seen on Tibetan objects (such as knife-sheaths, tinder-pouches, bowls, pitchers, etc.), with the characteristic turquoises and corals. I first saw these in Hong Kong in the 1970s, shopkeepers all said at that time that these were "Mongolian knives and swords". One problem -- in all of the period photos I've seen depicting Mongolia and its people, not one of these swords shows up. The Los Angeles County Museum of Art has a single-edged example which is captioned as "Tibetan" in the display cabinet. Again, an exhaustive hunt for documentary ethnographic photos, or provenanced examples in museums, has turned up zilch. And interestingly, nothing remotely similar was included in the definitive exhibition "Warriors of the Himalayas" mounted by the Metropolitan Mus. of Art in 2006 using material from collections in several countries. These are curio items, composites made of associated materials : antique jades and other hardstones of varying age, blades which were either freshly made (usually quite crudely) or recycled from broken antique Chinese and Japanese swords, and silver parts crafted for the purpose. It's believed that most of these came from Beijing. Silversmiths there were familiar with Tibetan styles of silverwork because a fair amount of the metalwork used by Tibetans was in fact made in China for the export trade. Some of these sword-like objects are "fairly old" because I've seen a few which have a provenance of sorts -- estate pieces traceable to military or diplomatic service (usually as gifts to US personnel in China before or during WW II). One piece of this sort I remember seeing at a gun show was a jian that had virtually no patina to speak of (having been well-stored in a gun case for years) and fake Qianlong reign marks on the blade that were something of a bad joke. I also saw brand-new ones for sale at the Beijing "Friendship Stores" in 1979 and '81, and similar albeit poorer-quality ones offered for sale in Shanhaiguan in 1998.