AN UNUSUAL BRONZE RITUAL TRIPOD VESSEL

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AN UNUSUAL BRONZE RITUAL TRIPOD VESSEL
WESTERN HAN DYNASTY

The bowl cast in shallow relief with a bowstring band atop an overlapped band interrupted by a pair of taotie masks cast in thread relief suspending loose rings, all below a sharply everted rim and raised on three supports, in the form of women standing with arms akimbo, each bare-breasted and wearing a short, textured skirt, the faces with broad features, the greenish-gray patina with some green and brown encrustation, restored--10 3/4 in. (27.3cm.) diam.

Lot Essay

This vessel is referred to by Chinese archaeologists as a cheng, a vessel for warming wine. Bronze vessels of the same type can be seen in the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco and the Freer Gallery of Art, Washington, D. C. Refer to Renee Lefevre d'Argence, Bronze Vessels of Ancient China in the Avery Brundage Collection, San Francisco, 1977, pl. LVIII; John Alexander Pope, The Freer Chinese Bronzes, vol. I, Washington, 1967, no. 114. A pair of these vessels was unearthed in Xi-an, Shaanxi province, in 1964 with other bronzes believed to be of Western Han date: a buoshanlu incense burner, a lamp and a fanghu, cf. Wenwu 1966, no. 4, p. 8, fig. 5. Another was found in Mizhixian, northern Shaanxi, cf. Kaogu, 1980, no. 1, pl. XII:5