SHANG DYNASTY, 12TH-11TH CENTURY BC

細節

AN UNUSUAL BRONZE RITUAL TRIPOD VESSEL, DING
SHANG DYNASTY, 12TH-11TH CENTURY BC
The body with S-curved profile raised on three plain tapering columnar legs and cast around the sides with a band of leiwen-filled blades cast in relief with cicadas pendent from a leiwen band also cast in relief with three pairs of bird-like dragons confronted on and separated by notched flanges projecting from shield-form masks, with a pair of thick bail handles rising from the rim, the interior cast with an inscription, with mottled milky-green patina on the exterior and a silvery patina on the interior, with malachite encrustation
8 5/8 in. (22 cm.) high

拍品專文

The inscription consists of a pictograph usually deciphered as diao ('condole') placed above the pictograph for a chariot.

A ding of this shape and with similar decoration, including the casting of the cicadas in relief, in the Museum Reitberg is illustrated by H. Brinker in the exhibition catalogue, Bronzen aus dem alten China, Museum Reitberg, Zurich, 11 November 1975 - 29 February 1976, pp. 28-9, no. 1. Another was included in the exhibition, Jadequell und Wolkenmeer, 5000 Jahre chinesischer Kunst aus dem Museum von Shanghai, Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe, Hamburg, 1988, pp. 78-9, no. 18. Unlike these two vessels, the present ding has somewhat more slender and undecorated legs.