Tin-Rich Surface Decoration of Chinese Bronzes: A Case Study of the British Museum Collection

摘要

In this paper six bronze artefacts of the Eastern Zhou period to Han dynasty (770 BC - 220 AD) with tin-rich surface decoration in the British Museum collection were studied using a variety of analytical techniques. The decoration patterns include trellis patterns ((sic)) on two swords of the Yue state, tiger's striped patterns (hu-ban-wen, ) on two swords from the Ba-Shu region, a hexagonal star pattern ((sic)) on a spearhead of the Wu state, and a cloud-like pattern on a garment hook. The tin-rich decorations on those objects were produced by deliberate tinning processes; at least three different tinning techniques were used, including the use of tin-rich pastes for the trellis pattern of a Yue state sword and for the mottling decoration on the Ba-Shu swords, amalgam tinning for the hexagonal star pattern on the spearhead of the Yue state, and hot tinning for the cloud-like pattern of the garment hook. Different tinning techniques could have been applied to produce similar tin-rich decoration patterns, and vice versa, a single tinning technique could have been used to produce different tin-rich patterns on different objects.