A large mingqi archaic copper-alloy bell (bozhong), probably Eastern Zhou dynasty

Acquired by H.R.H. Palhavi and her husband shortly after arriving in Paris during the 1980s.

This large bozhong bell, with its thin walls and its decorative roundels in place of the usual raised bosses, would seem not to be functional for chiming, but to represent a prestigious burial object. Such vessels are discussed in Lothar von Falkenhausen and Thomas D. Rossing, ‘Acoustical and Musical Studies on the Sackler Bells’ in Jenny F. So, Eastern Zhou Ritual Bronzes from the Arthur M. Sackler Collections, New York, 1995, p. 447, where they write: “Many important late Eastern Zhou tombs, which in an earlier period would typically have been furnished with chime bells, either lack them entirely or contain instead mingqi (spirit utensils) – non-functional imitations of smaller size and/or inferior materials. Mingqi bells had been around since the middle of the fifth century”. They propose two bells in the Sackler collection, no. 75, to be such examples, since they “have very thin walls and are still partially filled with clay core”.

Clay models and moulds with similar designs, but generally executed in higher relief, can be found among the casting debris of the Houma bronze foundry in southern Shanxi province, which was active from the sixth to the early fourth century BC; see Li Xiating and Liang Ziming, Art of the Houma Foundry, Princeton, 1996, in particular related masks with entwined features, passim, bell handles, pp. 183-4, roundels with petal motifs on a dotted ground, p. 405, cowrie borders, pp. 359-61, and twisted-rope borders, p. 479. Compare also a bell sold in our New York rooms, 22nd September 2025, lot 39.