LATE SHANG DYNASTY, ANYANG, 12TH-11TH CENTURY BC

Details

THE SHI GU
A BRONZE RITUAL WINE VESSEL
LATE SHANG DYNASTY, ANYANG, 12TH-11TH CENTURY BC
The trumpet-form neck is cast with four leiwen-filled blades rising from a band of S-shaped serpents. The middle section and spreading foot are cast in high relief with the disconnected parts of a taotie mask reserved on a fine leiwen ground and divided and separated by notched flanges, as are those on the foot, which are set below a band of kui dragons. A single clan mark is cast inside the foot. The bronze has a mottled milky-green patina.
12 ¼ in. (31 cm.) high

Provenance

Dr. Nathanael Wessén Collection, Stockholm, acquired in the 1930s-1940s.
Eskenazi Ltd., London, 1975.

Literature

Mostra d'Arte Cinese, Settimo Centenario di Marco Polo, Venice, 1954, no. 5.
B. Kalgren, "Bronzes in the Wessén Collection", B.M.F.E.A., vol. 30, Stockholm, 1958, pls.7-8, no. 4.
B. Kalgren and J. Wirgin, "Chinese Bronzes, The Nathanael Wessén Collection", The Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities Monograph Series, vol. 1, Stockholm, 1969, col. pl. 4, pls. 21-22, figs. 1-2, no. 15.
Eskenazi Ltd., Ancient Chinese bronzes from the Stoclet and Wessén collections, London, 1975, no. 1.
Guiseppe Eskenazi, A Dealer’s Hand: The Chinese Art World through the Eyes of Guiseppe Eskenazi, London, 2012, p. 184, pl. 22.

Exhibited

Venice, Palazzo Ducale, Mostra d'Arte Cinese, Settimo Centenario di Marco Polo, 1954.
London, Eskenazi Ltd., Ancient Chinese bronzes from the Stoclet and Wessén collections, 11 June to 12 July 1975.

Lot Essay

The clan sign, Shi, cast on the interior of the foot of the present vessel is made up of two components: a hand on the left side, and a bamboo slip book on the lower right side, together giving the impression of a hand holding a book. This particular clan mark is associated with a person of official title who kept the historical records of the royal family, from whom the Shi clan were likely to have been descendants. A ding vessel dated to the late Shang dynasty, inscribed with the Shi clan sign on the interior of the mouth, is in the collection of the National Palace Museum, Taipei, and is illustrated in A Catalogue of Shang Dynasty Bronze Inscriptions: Ancient Chinese Script from the 1st Millennium B.C., Taipei, 1995, p. 48-49, no. 6.

This finely cast gu is associated with the 'mature' style of gu from Anyang (13th to 11th century BC), which all exhibit the same distinctive structure and the same decorative format of motifs. 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. See B. Kalgren and J. Wirgin, "Chinese Bronzes, The Nathanael Wessén Collection", The Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities Monograph Series, vol. 1, Stockholm, 1969, p. 74, for a discussion of the present gu and its origins from Anyang, where the authors note that "the workmanship of this vessel is of the highest class."

A similar gu of comparable size (31.5 cm. high) in the van der Mandele Collection is illustrated by H.F.E. Visser in Asiatic Art in Private Collections of Holland and Belgium, Amsterdam, 1948, pl. 5, no. 6. Another comparable example of the same size as the present gu from the Sze Yuan Tang Collection, was sold at Christie's New York, 16 September 2010, lot 809.

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