LATE SHANG DYNASTY, ANYANG, 12TH CENTURY BC

Details

A BRONZE RITUAL TRIPOD FOOD VESSEL, DING
LATE SHANG DYNASTY, ANYANG, 12TH CENTURY BC
The full, rounded body is raised on three columnar legs and is decorated with a band of blades cast in low, rounded relief with large cicadas pendent from a band comprised of three taotie masks, each centered by a flange and flanked by outward-facing bottle-horn dragons that are in turn confronted on further flanges, all reserved on leiwen grounds. The decoration has black inlay that contrasts with the milky-green patina. A single graph of a hand holding a ge halberd against the neck of a human figure is cast on the wall of the interior.
9 ¾ in. (24.8 cm.) high

Provenance

J. T. Tai & Co., New York.
Arthur M. Sackler (1913-1987) Collections.
Else Sackler (1913-2000) Collection, and thence by descent within the family.

Literature

Noel Barnard and Cheung Kwong-Yue, Rubbings and Hand Copies of Bronze Inscriptions in Chinese, Japanese, European, American, And Australasian Collections, Taipei, 1978, no. 1352 (inscription only).
Yan Yiping, Jinwen Zongji (Corpus of Bronze Inscriptions), Taipei, 1983, no. 65 (inscription only).
Yinzhou jinwen jicheng (Compendium of Yin and Zhou Bronze Inscriptions), The Institute of Archaeology, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Beijing, 1984, no. 1011 (inscription only).
R. W. Bagley, Shang Ritual Bronzes in the Arthur M. Sackler Collections, The Arthur M. Sackler Foundation, Washington, D.C., 1987, pp. 452-57, no. 82.
Wu Zhenfeng, Shangzhou qingtongqi mingwen ji tuxiang jicheng (Compendium of Inscriptions and Images of Bronzes from the Shang and Zhou Dynasties), Shanghai, 2012, vol. 1, p. 181, no. 222.

Lot Essay

The same inscription is found on two axes and a ge blade in conjunction with a pictograph of a xian vessel cast on the opposite side, all illustrated by Bagley in Shang Ritual Bronzes in the Arthur M. Sackler Collections, pp. 454-6: fig. 82.1, an axe in the Winthrop Collection, Fogg Art Museum, fig. 82.2, an axe in the Nelson Atkins Gallery, Kansas City, and fig. 82.3, a ge blade. The author goes on to note that the two graphs have been interpreted as the names of a prince of Wu Ding's reign, which implies a date near the beginning of the twelfth century.

Four ding with very similar decoration in the main band are illustrated in Yinxu fu Hao mu (Tomb of Lady Hao at Yinxu in Anyang), Beijing, 1980, pl. VI 1 (no. 821) and 2 (no. 756), and pl. VII 1 (no. 814) and 2 (no. 762), the latter two ding with the addition of pendent blades on the legs.

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