SECOND SESSION AT 2:00 PM PRECISELY (LOTS 151-285) PROPERTY FORMERLY IN THE COLLECTION OF WILLIAM AND BERNADETTE BERGER

A Large Finely Cast Bronze Ritual Vessel, Hu

SHANG DYNASTY, 13TH/12TH CENTURY BC

細節

A Large Finely Cast Bronze Ritual Vessel, Hu
Shang dynasty, 13th/12th century BC
The pear-shaped body of oval section decorated with bands of varying width finely cast with dragons reserved on leiwen grounds, on all of the bands, but one, the dragons with rounded eyes are confronted on a shallow flange to form taotie masks, and in each band the dragons and other decoration is somewhat different: in the widest band on the lower body the dragon's horns are formed by smaller dragons, the narrow band above is cast with four pairs of elongated dragons confronted on each side as well as on the narrow sides, the wide band on the shoulder has a small descending dragon beneath the tail of each large dragon, and on the band encircling the flared mouth there is a small bottle-horn dragon positioned behind each dragon and above each of the dragon-head lug handles which interrupt a band of small birds, the whole raised on a slightly flared pedestal foot also encircled by a band of taotie masks incorporating long-tailed birds with backward- turned, crested heads, the interior of the neck cast with a pictogram, with mottled grey-green patina and some azurite and malachite encrustation
155/8in. (39.7cm) high, wood box

來源

Sotheby's, London, 10 June 1997, lot 112.

拍品專文

Large finely cast hu of this richly ornamented type are in several collections, but on each of the vessels the combination of decoration varies. See the example in the Freer Gallery of Art, illustrated by J. Pope et al., The Freer Chinese Bronzes, Washington, D.C., 1967, vol. I, pl. 5; the hu in the Asian Art Museum of San Franciso, illustrated by R.L. d'Argencé, Bronze Vessels of Ancient China in the Avery Brundage Collection, 1977, pl. XIV (center); one in the Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto, published in Homage to Heaven, Homage to Earth, Toronto, 1992, pl. 43. Another is published by Wang-go Weng and Yang Boda, The Palace Museum: Peking, Treasures of the Forbidden City, New York, 1982, no. 50; and one is published in Masterworks of Chinese Bronze in the National Palace Museum, Taipei, 1974, no. 34. See, also, the example illustrated by J. Rawson, The Bella and P.P. Chiu Collection of Ancient Chinese Bronzes, Hong Kong, 1988, no. 5.