Live Auction 15706Fine Chinese Ceramics and Works of Art
A BRONZE RITUAL TRIPOD FOOD VESSEL, LIDING
Lot 1104PROPERTY FROM A PRIVATE AMERICAN COLLECTION

A BRONZE RITUAL TRIPOD FOOD VESSEL, LIDING

LATE SHANG DYNASTY, 11TH CENTURY BC

Closed14 September 2018

Price Realised

USD 150,000

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A BRONZE RITUAL TRIPOD FOOD VESSEL, LIDING
LATE SHANG DYNASTY, 11TH CENTURY BC
The tri-lobed body is raised on three slender, columnar legs, and is cast above each leg with a large taotie mask with rounded eyes flanked by a pair of descending dragons and reserved on a leiwen ground below a narrow band of leiwen. A pair of bail handles rise from the rim. The side of the interior is cast with a single character, ya. The bronze is of dark grey color.
8 ½ in. (21.6 cm.) high

C. T. Loo & Co., New York, before 1976.
The Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Leo S. Bing; Christie's New York, 24 March 2004, lot 107.

Specialist note

The cruciform character ya is sometimes termed as yaxing (ya shape) and is often combined with other pictographs to represent clans. In the Shang dynasty, clans with the ya added to their clan names are believed to be those that were conferred with the title of Marquis. It is very rare to find single-character inscription of ya. See, a late Shang bronze liding cast with a single ya character in the National Palace Museum, Taipei, illustrated by Chang Kuang-yuan in A Catalogue of Shang Dynasty Bronze Inscriptions, Ancient Chiense Script From the 1st Millenium B.C., Taipei, 1995, no. 15.