A RARE LARGE BRONZE BIRD-FORM VESSEL AND COVER, HU

WARRING STATES PERIOD

Details

A RARE LARGE BRONZE BIRD-FORM VESSEL AND COVER, HU
Warring States Period
The vessel of plump hu form raised on a spreading pedestal foot, with a pair of finely cast taotie mask handles on the shoulder suspending loose rings and a similar mask and ring handle set equidistant between the two but lower on the body opposite where the mouth rim curves upwards to form a broad spout in imitation of the lower half of a bird's beak, the upper half of the beak formed by a hinged section of the slightly domed cover and cast with a shallow groove of conforming outline and a central ridge leading back to the hinge to create the look of a short, slightly hooked beak like that of an owl, a pair of slightly raised eyes on either side of the hinge completing the representation of a bird's head, two of the three upright rings on the cover perhaps representing ears and all positioned above each of the handles on the body, the smooth mottled surface of gray, olive-gray and pale greenish color with areas of pale green encrustation
16.3/8in. (41.6cm.) high

Provenance

Yamanaka & Company, Osaka
Neiraku Bijutsukan, Nara
Nakamura Collection, Kobe
Christian Deydier, London

Literature

Umehara, Nihon Shucho Shina Kodo seika, Osaka, 1962, vol. 5, no. CCCLXXXIII
Mizuno, Toyo bijutsu, dai gokan, Doki (Asiatic Art in Japanese Collections, vol. 5: Chinese Archaic Bronzes), Tokyo-Osaka, 1968, no. 84
Neiraku Bijutsukan, Nara, 1969, p. 37, no. 23

Exhibited

Nara, Japan, Neiraku Bijutsukan, 1969, no. 23

Lot Essay

Although the hu was a fairly common shape for wine vessels during the archaic period, vessels of this shape alluding to the shape of a bird and with a cover shaped as a bird's head are quite rare. Two related vessels are illustrated by Jenny So in Eastern Zhou Ritual Bronzes from the Arthur M. Sackler Collections, Arthur M. Sackler Foundation, vol. III, 1995, pp. 274 and 275, figs. 48.1 and 48.3. The first is in the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, and has a more slender body left plain except for a rib on the lower body where a ring is suspended from a small loop. An arched handle attached to either side of the neck pierces two rings suspended from loops on the bird's-head cover. The body of the second vessel, formerly in the collection of Baron Paul Hatvany, is horizontally grooved and has a hinged handle attached at the base of the neck which also pierces rings suspended from the bird's-head cover. The eyes on each of these covers are more pronounced than those on the present cover

The present hu appears to be a hybrid of the standard hu with mask and ring handles and the two examples cited where the mask and ring handles have been discarded for a different kind of handle which could be suspended. It is also not surprising that the plumpness of the hu form should have at some point suggested the body of a bird which then only needed a head to complete the impression

A metal corrosion analysis by Conservation and Technical Services Ltd., University of London, is consistent with the dating of this lot