A SMALL BRONZE TRIPOD VESSEL, DING

SHANG DYNASTY, LATE ANYANG PERIOD, 11TH CENTURY BC

Details

A SMALL BRONZE TRIPOD VESSEL, DING
Shang dynasty, late Anyang period, 11th century BC
The hemispherical body raised on three tall supports formed by dragons with flat bodies, large rounded eyes and open jaws positioned below each of the narrow flanges which separate the three panels of confronted dragons reserved on the leiwen band encircling the sides, all below a pair of bail handles rising from the everted rim, the interior later carved with a two-character pictograph, with mottled pale green patina and some blue-green encrustation
6½in. (16.5cm.) high, stand

Lot Essay

Compare the similar small ding, the She ding, illustrated by R. W. Bagley, Shang Ritual Bronzes in the Arthur M. Sackler Collections, Washington, D.C. and Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1987, p. 451, fig. 81.1, which was reported to come from a later Anyang burial unearthed in 1933. This flat-legged ding form evolved from earlier pottery examples, such as the pottery ding of Erlitou date illustrated op. cit, p. 93, fig. 97, as well as a bronze prototype of 15th-14th century BC date with deeper, more rounded body, pp. 446-7, no. 80. Other ding of this type are in the collections of the Musée Guimet, Paris; the Museum of Eastern Art, Oxford; and the Yale University Art Gallery.

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