A Rare Pair of Bronze Hu and Covers

WARRING STATES PERIOD

Details

A Rare Pair of Bronze Hu and Covers
Warring States Period
Each cast in intaglio with an allover pattern of hooked and interconnected scrolls forming a large diamond-shaped grid filled with linear scrolls, raised on a tall foot and applied with a pair of taotie mask handles suspending loose rings, the slightly domed cover similarly cast and applied with four small coiled dragon loops which act as feet when the cover is inverted, with finely mottled patina of pale milky greenish tone, traces of lacquer inlay
14½in. (36.8cm.) high (2)

Lot Essay

In shape and type of intaglio decoration this hu is similar to one in the Victoria and Albert Museum illustratted by R. Kerr, Chinese Art and Design, Woodstock, New York, 1991, p. 220, no. 103, which still has its inlaid decoration of copper and malachite or turquoise intact. Unlike this example the present hu still retain their covers, and the dragon-loops on the covers are similar to those found on the cover of a fanghu in the Freer Gallery of Art, illustrated by T. Lawton in Chinese Art of the Warring States Period, Washington, D.C., 1982, no. 7, p. 38-39. The decoration on the faceted body of this hu and one like it excavated in 1957 from Shanxian, Henan province, relates very well to that on the present pair. Like the Freer and excavated fanghu, the present pair would have been richly inlaid in copper and malachite.

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