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Lot Essay
The pictograph may be read, Bo Feng zuo lu yi, and may be translated, 'Bo Feng made (this) lu yi'.
No other pair of bronze vessels of this form appears to have been published. Most likely of provincial manufacture, the unusual tapering square shape seems to relate to the earliest pottery prototypes of the fangding shape, such as that illustrated in a line drawing in The Great Bronze Age of China, An Exhibition from the People's Republic of China, Wen Fong (ed.), The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1980, p. 4. But the shape is actually closer to that of bronze fangyi of Shang dynasty date, which are rectangular rather than square. See R.W. Bagley, Shang Ritual Bronzes in the Arthur M. Sackler Collections, Arthur M. Sackler Foundation, Washington DC, 1987, p. 433, fig. 77.8, for a fangyi without cover from Anyang Xiaotun, that has sides decorated with large taotie masks, but no flanges. Another fangyi with cover, fig. 77.9, p. 433, has narrow shallow flanges, but the apron joining the corner-shaped legs has a rare ogival arch similar to that on the Falk vessels.
The bands of decoration on these vessels is also highly unusual, the diagonal arrangement of the hooked scrolls most likely based on highly stylized S-shaped dragons similar to those on a bronze ding illustrated by J. Rawson, Western Zhou Ritual Bronzes from the Arthur M. Sackler Collections, Arthur M. Sackler Foundation, Washington DC, 1990, vol. IIB, p. 290, but even more abstract, so that all relationship with a dragon form has been lost. The large 'eye' at each corner may represent the eye of a dragon, or may relate to the simplified heart-shaped scales seen on some bronzes of late Western Zhou date. See another ding illustrated by Rawson, ibid., p. 300, for a band of such abstract scale decoration.
No other pair of bronze vessels of this form appears to have been published. Most likely of provincial manufacture, the unusual tapering square shape seems to relate to the earliest pottery prototypes of the fangding shape, such as that illustrated in a line drawing in The Great Bronze Age of China, An Exhibition from the People's Republic of China, Wen Fong (ed.), The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1980, p. 4. But the shape is actually closer to that of bronze fangyi of Shang dynasty date, which are rectangular rather than square. See R.W. Bagley, Shang Ritual Bronzes in the Arthur M. Sackler Collections, Arthur M. Sackler Foundation, Washington DC, 1987, p. 433, fig. 77.8, for a fangyi without cover from Anyang Xiaotun, that has sides decorated with large taotie masks, but no flanges. Another fangyi with cover, fig. 77.9, p. 433, has narrow shallow flanges, but the apron joining the corner-shaped legs has a rare ogival arch similar to that on the Falk vessels.
The bands of decoration on these vessels is also highly unusual, the diagonal arrangement of the hooked scrolls most likely based on highly stylized S-shaped dragons similar to those on a bronze ding illustrated by J. Rawson, Western Zhou Ritual Bronzes from the Arthur M. Sackler Collections, Arthur M. Sackler Foundation, Washington DC, 1990, vol. IIB, p. 290, but even more abstract, so that all relationship with a dragon form has been lost. The large 'eye' at each corner may represent the eye of a dragon, or may relate to the simplified heart-shaped scales seen on some bronzes of late Western Zhou date. See another ding illustrated by Rawson, ibid., p. 300, for a band of such abstract scale decoration.