SHANG DYNASTY, 11TH CENTURY BC

Details

A BRONZE RITUAL TRIPOD VESSEL, DING
SHANG DYNASTY, 11TH CENTURY BC
Raised on three columnar supports cast with cicada blades, the deep rounded sides cast in low relief between the legs with three taotie masks below a band of four pairs of bird-headed dragons, all reserved on a leiwen ground and centered on and separated by vertical flanges, with a pair of bail handles rising from the rim, the interior cast with a clan sign, with mottled greenish patina
10¼ in. (26 cm.) high

Provenance

Spink & Son, London, c. 1985.

Lot Essay

The clan sign cast on the interior depicts a hand grasping a bird.

The ding was one of the vessels required to perform the ritual food and wine offerings to the ancestors.
The robust shape and cast decoration of this ding are very similar to that of a ding excavated at Anyang prefecture, Henan province, now in the Harvard University Art Museums, illustrated in Zhongguo Qingtong Quanji - Shang, vol. 2, no. 2, Beijing, 1997, p. 37, no. 37. Another similar example in the collection of Axel Jonsson was illustrated by B. Karlgren, "New Studies on Chinese Bronzes", B.M.F.E.A., No. 9, Stockholm, 1937, pl. III, no. 76.

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