LATE SHANG - EARLY WESTERN ZHOU DYNASTY, 12TH-11TH CENTURY BC

Details

A RARE AND LARGE BRONZE RITUAL WINE VESSEL, LEI
LATE SHANG - EARLY WESTERN ZHOU DYNASTY, 12TH-11TH CENTURY BC
The vessel is elegantly cast in an ovoid form with a band of whorl bosses to the shoulders, divided by a pair of D-shaped bovine-mask handles to each side, just below a plain decorated band to the neck and the flared mouth. The lower body is cast with three ox-head handles with bulging eyes, each bearing pictograms incised between the large horns reading zi mei, all rising from a short foot rim.
15 7⁄8 in. (40.5 cm) high

Provenance

An Osaka private collection, circa 1934 (by repute)
Offered at Sotheby’s London, 10 December 1985, lot 19
Sold at Sotheby’s New York, 19 September 2001, lot 3
Sold at Sotheby’s New York, 20 March 2019, lot 660

Literature

Noel Barnard and Cheung Kwong-Yue, Rubbings and Hand Copies of Bronze Inscriptions in Chinese, Japanese, European, American, and Australasian Collections, vol. 8, Taipei, 1978, no. 1216 (inscription).
Liu Yu and Lu Yan, ed., Jinchu Yin Zhou jinwen jilu [Compilation of recently discovered archaic bronze inscriptions], Beijing, 2002, pl. 980
Zhong Baisheng, Chen Zhaorong, and Huang Mingchong, etc., ed., Xinshou Yin Zhou qingtongqi mingwen ji qiying huibian[Compendium of inscriptions and images of recently included bronzes from Yin and Zhou dynasties], Taipei, 2006, no. 1933
Wang Tao and Liu Yu, A Selection of Early Chinese Bronzes with Inscriptions from Sotheby’s and Christie’s Sales, Shanghai, 2007, pl. 331
Wu Zhenfeng, Shangzhou qingtongqi mingwen ji tuxiang jicheng [Compendium of inscriptions and images of bronzes from Shang and Zhou Dynasties], vol. 25, Shanghai, 2012, no. 13759.

Special notice

This lot is offered without reserve.

Sale room notice

Please note this lot is offered without reserve.
請注意，此拍品無底價。

Conditions of sale

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Lot Essay

Bronze lei of this type with cast inscriptions are rare. A much smaller lei bearing the same two-character inscription, reportedly discovered from Anyang, Henan province, formerly in the William Charles White Collection, now in the Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto, is illustrated by Wu Zhenfeng, Shangzhou qingtongqi mingwen ji tuxiang jicheng [Compendium of Inscriptions and Images of Bronzes from Shang and Zhou Dynasties], vol. 25, Shanghai, 2012, no. 13758. For a lei with inscriptions and four other lei without inscription, discovered from the late Shang dynasty hoard in Beidong village, Liaoning province, see 'Liaoning Kazuoxian Beidongcun faxian Yindai qingtongqi' [Yin dynasty bronze discovered in Beidong village, Kazuo county, Liaoning province], Kaogu, no.4, Beijing, pl. 7, fig 1, pl. 6, fig. 3 and pl. 7, figs 2, 3, and 4. Another inscribed lei with two characters in the Sumitomo Collection is published in Sen-Oku Hakuko Kan: Sumitomo Collection [Ancient Art from the Sumitomo collection], Kyoto, 2002, pl. 115; another lei is in the Shaanxi Provincial Museum, illustrated in Zhongguo wenwu jinghua Daquan [Compendium of Chinese bronzes], Taipei, 1993, p. 35, no. 123.

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