A RARE SMALL BRONZE RITUAL WINE VESSEL AND COVER, FANGLEI
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A RARE SMALL BRONZE RITUAL WINE VESSEL AND COVER, FANGLEI

LATE SHANG/EARLY WESTERN ZHOU DYNASTY, 11TH CENTURY BC

Details
A RARE SMALL BRONZE RITUAL WINE VESSEL AND COVER, FANGLEI
LATE SHANG/EARLY WESTERN ZHOU DYNASTY, 11TH CENTURY BC
Raised on a flared foot, each facet of the high-shouldered, tapering body is cast with a band of whorl bosses between bow-string bands interrupted by loop handles issuing from bovine masks. With a third handle on the lower body on one side, the tall neck is similarly cast with bow-string bands, and the domed cover cast en suite with whorl bosses beneath the tall, faceted finial. The interior of the cover is cast with a four-character inscription.
13 7/8 in. (35.2 cm.) high, wood stand, two Japanese wood boxes, one inscribed by Zoroku
Provenance
Acquired in Nakaban, Tokyo, in the 1920s.
Private collection, Japan.
Exhibited
Art Dealers Fair and Exhibition, Tokyo, Japan, 8-12 October 1966, p. 35, no. 23.

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Michael Bass
Michael Bass

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Lot Essay

The four-character inscription cast in the interior of the cover reads Ran zuo zong yi (Ran made this yi for his ancestors).

While the basic shape of the present vessel conforms to that of classic fanglei, this example is notable for its austerity and simplicity of surface detail. Hayashi Minao in Inshu Jidai Seidoki Monyo no Kenkyu, vol. 1, Tokyo, 1984, pl. 44 (lower left), illustrates a fanglei that is similar in the simplicity of its decoration and in its proportions, although the cover on that example has rounded edges rather than the straight edges seen on the current cover. A fanglei of larger size (46.4 cm. high) and taller proportions, but exhibiting a similar angularity in shape and relative sparseness of decoration, that includes bands with whorl bosses and bow-string bands, is illustrated in Bronzes de la Chine Antique du XVIII au III siecles avant J.C., Milan, 1988, p. 113, no. 37. Similar angularity of shape can also be seen in a fangyou from the collection of Mr. and Mrs. Eric Lidow included in the exhibition, Ancient Ritual Bronzes of China, Los Angeles Museum of Art, 3 February - 26 April 1976, p. 53, no. 31. The surface detail of the Lidow fangyou is even more spare than that of the present vessel, employing only pairs of horizontal bow-string bands as decoration.

Another noteworthy feature of the present fanglei is its unusually small size, and very few examples of such small size appear to be recorded. A fanglei with more elaborate decoration and more rounded shape in the Kurokawa Research Institute of Ancient Culture, measuring 24 cm. high and lacking its cover, is illustrated by Sueji Umehara in Nihon Shucho Shina Kodo Seika, vol. 1, Osaka, 1959-1964, no. 20. See, also, the fanglei with cover of small size (31.5 cm. high) sold in these rooms, 17 September 2008, lot 554.

According to Jessica Rawson, Western Zhou Ritual Bronzes from the Arthur M. Sackler Collections, vol. IIB, Arthur M. Sackler Foundation, 1990, p. 606, plain fanglei were made and used alongside the highly decorated examples in both the Shang and Zhou periods, and that the vessel form "did not long survive the Zhou conquest and disappeared from the vessel repertory before middle Western Zhou."

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