LATE SHANG DYNASTY, 12TH-11TH CENTURY BC

The graph cast on the interior of the vessel is the symbol of an important clan in the Shang and Zhou Dynasties. This graph has been interpreted as li, a tripod vessel with two handles, or bing, the third celestial stem in the ten tiangan (Celestial Stems) system in the Shang dynasty. However, the exact meaning of this graph is still subject to scholarly debate and the latest academic opinion holds that the graph is undecipherable. The prominent archaeologist Zou Heng argues that this graph depicts a certain type of pottery li vessel, which is typical of the Xindian culture, Siwa culture, and pre-dynastic Zhou culture in Shaanxi and Gansu provinces, and therefore is a symbol of an ancient clan that encompasses these three cultures, see Zou Heng, ‘A Study of the Chou Culture’, Xia Shang Zhou kaoguxue lunwen ji (Essays on the Archaeology of Hsia, Shang and Chou Dynasties), Beijing, 1980, pp. 348-51. He further surmises that, "the li clan in the Shaanxi are the same as the Jiang clan in the ancient literature and may also be the clan of the Yan Emperor," see ibid, p. 351. In 1976 and 1985, a large number of bronzes bearing this clan sign were found in Jingjie village, Lingshi, Shanxi province. Some scholars interpreted this clan sign as bing, one of the ten tiangan (Celestial Stems) clans of the Shang Dynasty, which was based in the modern day Lingshi area in Shanxi province, see Hai Jinle and Han Binghua ed., Shanxi Provincial Institute of Archaeology, Lingshi Jingjie Shangmu, Beijing, 2006, pp. 196-202. The discovery in Lingshi, Shanxi province yielded the largest known group of bronzes bearing this clan sign, although bronzes with this clan sign have been found in Shaanxi, Henan, Shandong, Liaoning, and Beijing as well. There are also several handed-down bronzes with this clan sign including the famous Li fangding formerly in the Wu Dacheng (1835-1902) Collection, now in The British Museum, the Yu Zu Ding you in the Palace Museum, and a late Shang ding formerly in the Duan Fang (1861-1911) Collection and now in The Art Institute of Chicago. In his monograph on the Shang dynasty clan signs, He Jingcheng suggested that people from this clan“are a branch of the Shang royal family who was sent to establish a stronghold in Shanxi province”, see Shangzhou qingtongqi shizu mingwen (Clan Inscriptions on the Shang and Zhou bronzes), Jinan, 2009, pp. 133-138. In any regards, there is no doubt that the owner of the present liding was from a clan of very high status and only so can he/she commission a bronze of this caliber.

This magnificent liding attests to the artistic sensitivity and technical advancement in the pinnacle of bronze casting in the late Shang dynasty. Rarely seen on liding, the thick, notched flanges serve as a device in extending the volume of this ritual vessel and echo to the thick, outward-turned bail handles which in turn give the ritual vessel an up-lifting appearance. A similar late Shang liding from the Freer Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., is illustrated in J.A. Pope et al., The Freer Chinese Bronzes, Washington, D.C., 1967, vol. I, pl. 31 (47.11). The Freer liding shares a similar form and decoration with the present example but has a somewhat rigid silhouette. A liding with similar high-relief-cast taotie masks on the sides, but with low-relief taotie in the frieze below the rim, and lacking the intaglio decoration on the legs, from the National Palace Museum, Taipei, is illustrated in Shang Ritual Bronzes in the Palace Museum Collection, Taipei, 1998, pp. 216-19, no. 24 (fig. 1). Other liding of similar date, and with related taotie masks cast in relief, but with a frieze of cicadas below the rim and also lacking the intaglio decoration on the legs, include one illustrated by R.W. Bagley, Shang Ritual Bronzes in the Arthur M. Sackler Collections, Washington, D.C., 1987, pp. 484-85; two illustrated by C. Deydier, Les Bronzes Chinois, Paris, 1980, p. 215, nos. 1 (Museum für Ostasiastiche Kunst, Cologne) and 2 (Ashmolean Museum, Oxford); and the example sold at Christie's New York, 23 March 2012, lot 1517 (fig. 2). Compare also a smaller liding (16.4 cm.) with a similar decoration executed in low relief from the Meiyintang Collection, illustrated by C. Deydier, Chinese Bronzes from the Meiyintang Collection, vol. 1: Annexe, 2013, pp. 118-119, no. 70.

The present liding claims an impeccable provenance. In the early twentieth century, it was handled by the legendary Chinese art dealer C.T. Loo (1881-1957) and was owned by Mrs G. M. G. Forman in Buffalo, New York and Akron Art Museum, Ohio, subsequently. It was included by the preeminent scholar Chen Mengjia in his seminal work on Shang and Zhou bronzes, Meidiguo zhuyi jielue di woguo yinzhou qingtongqi jilu. Chen visited the U.S. between 1944-47 and compiled a comprehensive survey of Chinese archaic bronzes in American collections. This liding was also owned by acclaimed collectors Bella and P.P. Chiu and passed through the renowned Chinese art dealer Giuseppe Eskenazi.