A RARE BRONZE WINE VESSEL, ZUN

細節

A RARE BRONZE WINE VESSEL, ZUN
LATE SHANG DYNASTY, CIRCA 12TH CENTURY BC

The body, rising to a wide trumpet neck, cast with a raised central bulb within vertical twin-line borders to depict two high relief taotie masks on a crisp squared spiral ground flanked by pairs of dragon and phoenix at its corners, the interior of foot rim with a two-graph inscription, Fu ding, the patina of reddish-brown tone with some blue-green encrustation
9 7/8 in. (25.1 cm.) high, stand, box

拍品專文

Acquired by the present owner in July 1965.

An eccentric feature of the present zun is the 'smiling mouth' formed below the taotie, very similar to a vessel cast with flanges dividing the taotie masks, illustrated by R. W. Bagley, Shang Ritual Bronzes in the Arthur M. Sackler Collections, Harvard University Press, 1987, no. 49. Compare also a zun included in the Hong Kong O.C.S. exhibition and illustrated by Rawson and Bunker, Ancient Chinese and Ordos Bronzes, Hong Kong, 1990, no. 13; and another from the Museum für Ostasiatische Kunst, Cologne, sold in our New York Rooms, 2 December 1985, lot 76.