A SMALL BRONZE TRIPOD RITUAL FOOD VESSEL, LIDING

LATE SHANG DYNASTY, 12TH-11TH CENTURY BC

Details

A SMALL BRONZE TRIPOD RITUAL FOOD VESSEL, LIDING
LATE SHANG DYNASTY, 12TH-11TH CENTURY BC
The vessel is raised on three columnar legs, each positioned below a lobe cast in low relief with a taotie mask centered on a narrow flange and flanked by descending dragons, all reserved on a leiwen ground below a narrow band of cicadas shown facing to the right. A pair of bail handles rises from the slightly inward-canted rim. A single graph is cast below the rim on the interior. The bronze has a mottled patina.
5 7/8 in. (15 cm.) high

Provenance

Frank Caro, New York, June 1965.
Arthur M. Sackler Collections, New York.
Else Sackler, and thence by descent within the family.

Literature

R. Poor, Bronze Ritual Vessels of Ancient China, (slide lecture), New York, 1968.
R.W. Bagley, Shang Ritual Bronzes in the Arthur M. Sackler Collections, Arthur M. Sackler Foundation, 1987, pp. 480-81, no. 90.

Exhibited

New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Aspects of Ch'ang-sha Culture, 21 August - 24 September 1967.

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Lot Essay

The single graph cast on the interior of the vessel may be read as yu (writing brush).

A liding of larger size (21 cm.), but with very similar flat-cast decoration and dated Shang dynasty, 12th-11th century BC, is illustrated by S.D. Owyoung in Ancient Chinese Bronzes in the Saint Louis Art Museum, St. Louis, 1997, p. 68, no. 13.

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