A RARE ENGRAVED GILT-BRONZE JAR WITH PAINTED BASE, ZHADOU

Details

A RARE ENGRAVED GILT-BRONZE JAR WITH PAINTED BASE, ZHADOU
EASTERN HAN DYNASTY

Engraved with a thin band of chevrons at the widest point of the body between knobbed scrollwork on the shoulder and lower body, with a further band of more simplified scrollwork on the everted neck, the thick, slightly spreading foot ring encircled by another chevron band, the flat base unusually painted with a flying bird in green and outlined in black on a red ground
2 7/8in. (7.4cm.) high

Lot Essay

It is extremely rare to find painted decoration on early bronze vessels, particularly on one of this small size

See a similar Han engraved gilt-bronze lian also painted with a bird design, but to the cover interior, included in the Tenri Museum's 90th Anniversary Special Exhibition, Chugoku Kodai no Bun Butsu, (Cultural Relics of Ancient China), and illustrated in the Catalogue, pl. 74. Refer, also, to the lian in the Victoria and Albert Museum, with a phoenix painted on the interior of the cover and illustrated by William Willetts in Foundations of Chinese Art, London, 1965, p. 129, no. 20. Another covered lian, with the painting of a phoenix on the base, is in the Museum für Ostasiatische Kunst, Berlin, and illustrated by Siren in A History of Early Chinese Art, The Han Period, 1930, pl.55

Compare the Western Han basin, similarly engraved with chevron and scroll design sold in these rooms, June 3, 1993, lot 189