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Lot Essay
The four-character inscription may be translated, "X jian Ding fu". It includes a dedication to Father Ding preceded by an indecipherable graph and the character, "jian". An almost identical inscription, but shown in reverse, is cast inside the foot of a gu that is probably the pair to the present vessel, and is now in the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Washington DC. See R. Bagley, Shang Ritual Bronzes in the Arthur M. Sackler Collections, 1987, pp. 254-5, no. 38, where the author lists where the two indecipherable graphs appear together in inscriptions on several other bronzes.
Gu were one of the most important vessels used in Shang ritual practices, attested to by the inclusion of fifty-three in the tomb of Fu Hao. A similar gu of comparable size (31.5 cm. high) in the van der Mandele Collection is illustrated by H.F.E. Visser, Asiatic Art, New York/Amsterdam, 1948, pl. 5, no. 6; and another (30.5 cm. high) is illustrated by B. Karlgren and J. Wirgin, Chinese Bronzes: The Natanael Wessén Collection, Stockholm, 1969, no. 15.
Gu were one of the most important vessels used in Shang ritual practices, attested to by the inclusion of fifty-three in the tomb of Fu Hao. A similar gu of comparable size (31.5 cm. high) in the van der Mandele Collection is illustrated by H.F.E. Visser, Asiatic Art, New York/Amsterdam, 1948, pl. 5, no. 6; and another (30.5 cm. high) is illustrated by B. Karlgren and J. Wirgin, Chinese Bronzes: The Natanael Wessén Collection, Stockholm, 1969, no. 15.