Details
A RARE BRONZE RECTANGULAR FOOD VESSEL, FANGDING
LATE SHANG DYNASTY, 12TH/11TH CENTURY B.C.
Raised on four slender, columnar legs cast in intaglio with cicada blades, each side cast with a field of rounded bosses surrounding a plain, rectangular panel below a double-bodied serpent reserved on a band of leiwen interrupted by small roundels formed by clusters of five small bosses, the serpent bodies filled with lozenge pattern and the heads cast in high relief, with curved flanges at the corners and with a pair of tall bail handles cast in intaglio with conforming lines rising from the everted rim, with a single pictogram on the interior wall, the slightly convex base cast with thin, raised lines connecting the legs at the sides and diagonally to create an 'X' bisected by another line, the smooth patina of soft, mottled greenish-gray color with some encrustation, some repatination--9in. (22.9cm.) high
Literature
J. Leroy Davidson, An Exhibition of Chinese Bronzes, C.T. Loo and Co., New York, 1939, pl. IV, no. 18
B. Karlgren and H.F.E. Visser, Bulletin van de Vereeniging van Vrienden der Aziatische Kunst, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, Bulletin no. 5, May 1939, fig. 11
J-P Dubosc, 'Une Collection d'Art Chinois', Formes et Couleurs, no. 3, series XI, Lausanne, 1950, fig. d
H. Brinker, Bronzen aus dem alten China, Rietberg Museum, Zurich, 1975, no. 5
N. Barnard and Cheung Kwong-Yue, Rubbings and Hand Copies of Bronze Inscriptions in Chinese, Japanese, European, American and Australian Collections, vol. 8, Taipei, 1978, p. 920, no. 1755 (pictogram only)
