EARLY WESTERN ZHOU DYNASTY, CA. 1100-900 BC

細節

An Archaic Bronze Wine Vessel and Cover, You
Early Western Zhou dynasty, ca. 1100-900 BC
The pear-shaped body cast in low relief with strapwork cast in high relief at the interstices with diamond-shaped lozenges, below a band of leiwen cast with long-tailed birds confronted on small animal masks encircling the base of the neck, with a band of similar birds on the cover, the arched handle with sinuous dragons between the two bottle-horn animal-head terminals attached by loops to the two loops projecting from the sides of the neck, with twelve-character inscriptions cast inside the cover and on the interior base of the vessel, with pale grey patina and malachite encrustations
14 5/8in. (37.2cm.) high, box

來源

Sotheby's, New York, 15 June 1983, lot 120.

拍品專文

Compare a rubbing of what appears to be an identical twelve-character inscription found on a zun published in two compendiums: San dai jin wen cun (Depository of Bronze Inscriptions from the Three Dynasties) and in Xu yin wen cun; Shang (Depository of Shang Inscriptions; Book 1).

This hu is similar in its combination of strapwork and bird decoration to a number of published examples, which, unlike the present example, also have the bird decoration repeated on the foot. See the hu illustrated by J. Rawson, Western Zhou Ritual Bronzes from the Arthur M. Sackler Collections, vol. IIB, 1990, fig. 67.3; another in the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, included in the International Exhibition of Chinese Art, London, 1935-36, no. 178; and the two illustrated by B. Karlgren, 'Bronzes in the Hellström Collection', B.M.F.E.A., No. 20, 1948, pl. 49 (1 and 2).

The origin of the strapwork decoration on the lower body of these vessels is discussed by Von Erdberg in Artibus Asiae, Supplementum, XXV, vol. 3, 1969-70, p. 80, where he proposes that the design may be based on "protective harness of leather or sheet metal and fastened to a wooden bucket with square-headed nails".