LATE SHANG DYNASTY, 12TH-11TH CENTURY BC

Details

A BRONZE RITUAL TRIPOD FOOD VESSEL, LIDING
LATE SHANG DYNASTY, 12TH-11TH CENTURY BC
The vessel is raised on three columnar supports, and is flat-cast on each lobe of the body with a taotie mask reserved on a leiwen ground, as are the cicadas in the band above, which are divided by narrow flanges positioned above where the lobes join. A pair of bail handles rises from the narrow, slightly canted rim. A single graph is cast on the interior below the rim. There is extensive malachite encrustation.
7¾ in. (18.7 cm.) high

Provenance

Rare Art, Inc., New York, 1984.

Lot Essay

The graph cast on the interior of the vessel reads, xing. The same graph appears on a jia, dated to the 13th-12th century BC, illustrated by R. W. Bagley in Shang Ritual Bronzes in the Arthur M. Sackler Collections, The Arthur M. Sackler Foundation, 1987, pp. 164-65, no. 7, where the author cites several other bronze vessels bearing this graph.

More from Fine Chinese Ceramics and Works of Art

View All