A BOWL-SHAPED BRONZE VESSEL, YU

EARLY BRONZES

Details

A BOWL-SHAPED BRONZE VESSEL, YU
SHANG DYNASTY

The deep sides cast with a broad band of raised bosses, each set within a diamond formed by a scroll border, below a band of pairs of dragons reserved on a leiwen ground alternately divided by taotie masks or vertical flanges, with further flanges separating dragons with heads turned backward encircling the tall foot, the interior cast with a two-character pictogram, the cyclical character gui and the character shan (mountain), with a smooth, dark gray patina and slight cuprite encrustation--10in. (25.5cm.) diam.

Literature

C.T. Loo, An Exhibition of Chinese Bronzes, New York, 1939, pl. 7, no. 15
C.T. Loo, Exhibition of Chinese Arts, New York, 1941, no. 18
Bernhard Karlgren, "Marginalia on Some Bronze Albums", B.M.F.E.A., No. 31 (1959), pl. 31a
Chen Mengjia, Yin Zhou qingtongqi fenlei tulu (In Shu seidki bunrui zuroku; A Corpus of Chinese Bronzes in American Collections), 2 vols., Tokyo, 1977, A147
Robert W. Bagley, Shang Ritual Bronzes in the Arthur M. Sackler Collections, 1987, no. 98

Lot Essay

Robert Bagley in his entry on this bronze in Shang Ritual Bronzes in the Arthur M. Sackler Collections mentions that this yu is said to have been unearthed at Qishan, Shaanxi Province and subsequently acquired by the famous collector Chen Jieqi (1813-1884). Other examples of this type with the 'diamond-and-boss' decoration and dragon bands are also published: one unearthed in Wugong Youfengzhen, Shaanxi, 1959, Shaanxi chutu Shang Zhou qingtongqi, vol. 1, Beijing, 1979, no. 126; one in Studies of Yin and Zhou Bronze Decoration: A Conspectus of Yin and Zhou Bronze Vessels, vol. II, pl. 14-118; and another included in the exhibition, Bronzen aus dem alten China, Museum Reitberg, Zurich, 1975-76, Catalogue no. 19

Another yu, also with the 'diamond-and-boss' decorative band and cast with the character shan on the interior was unearthed in Qishan Hejiacun, Shaanxi, Kaogu, 1976:1, pp. 31-38