A FINE BRONZE TRIPOD FOOD VESSEL, DING

LATE SHANG DYNASTY

Details

A FINE BRONZE TRIPOD FOOD VESSEL, DING
Late Shang Dynasty
Of deep rounded shape supported on cylindrical legs, the body cast with a band of stylized dragons on a dense leiwen ground with seven evenly spaced relief-cast whorl bosses between the dragons, all above twenty-one pendent stylized cicada-shaped lappets, all inlaid in a charcoal black mastic, the shallow everted rim with two simple loop handles, the plain interior with a two-character pictogram, with an attractive olive-green patination, and some areas of minor encrustation
6¼in. (15.8cm.) high

Exhibited

New York, Exhibition of Chinese Arts, C. T. Loo & Co., November 1941 - April 1942, no. 21

Lot Essay

Compare the similar vessel illustrated by Eleanor von Erdberg, "Chinese Bronzes from the Collection of Chester Dale and Dolly Carter", Artibus Asiae, MCMLXXVIII, Supplementum XXV, Switzerland, 1978, Catalogue, p. 34, pl. 21

For a similar ding see Robert W. Bagley, Shang Ritual Bronzes in the Arthur M. Sackler Collections, 1987, pp. 458-459, no. 83, where the author discusses the long-lived decorative formula for the round ding shape which owed its enduring popularity to the neat consonance of shape and design

For other examples see Jessica Rawson, Western Zhou Ritual Bronzes from the Arthur M. Sackler Collections, vol. IIB, 1990, pp. 254-6, where the author also discusses the decorative motifs; C. T. Loo & Co., Exhibition of Chinese Arts, 1941-42, Catalogue, no. 21; Jessica Rawson and Emma Bunker, Ancient Chinese and Ordos Bronzes, Hong Kong Museum of Art, 1990, Catalogue, no. 20; Yutaka Mino and James Robinson, Beauty and Tranquility: The Eli Lilly Collection of Chinese Art, Indianapolis Museum of Art, 1983, Catalogue, pp. 98-99, pl. 24