AN UNUSUAL BRONZE RITUAL TRIPOD VESSEL, JUE

LATE SHANG DYNASTY, 12TH-11TH CENTURY BC

Details

AN UNUSUAL BRONZE RITUAL TRIPOD VESSEL, JUE
LATE SHANG DYNASTY, 12TH-11TH CENTURY BC
The deep body raised on three slightly curved blade-form supports and crisply cast around the sides with two registers of taotie masks, those in the lower register dissolved in small scrolls, the larger masks in the upper register more defined and framed by quills on the sides, the mask on one side interrupted by a three-character inscription cast beneath the handle that issues from a bovine mask, with further scrolls on the underside of the spout, and with a pair of tall posts with reel-shaped posts rising from the rim, with dark grey patina and malachite encrustation
8 3/8 in. (21.4 cm.) high

Provenance

Kochukyo Co., Ltd., Tokyo, January 1976.

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Lot Essay

The inscription may be read, X Fu Ding (X 'Father Ding'). The first character may be a clan name.

It is very rare to find a jue cast with two registers of taotie masks. Compare two other jue with similar arrangement of decoration, the first illustrated in Shang Ritual Bronzes in the National Palace Museum Collection, National Palace Museum, Taipei, 1998, pp. 144-5, no. 7, and the second illustrated by S.D. Owyoung in Ancient Chinese Bronzes in the St. Louis Art Museum, St. Louis, 1997, no. 22.

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