WARRING STATES PERIOD (475-221 BC)

Details

A RARE BRONZE SQUARE VASE AND COVER, FANGHU
Warring States period (475-221 BC)
Of squared pear shape on a square foot, two sides applied with a crisply cast and finely-detailed taotie mask suspending a loose ring, the waisted neck, upper and lower body and base cast in recessed relief and inlaid with seperated panels containing repeated geometric pattern quadrilaterals enclosing dense abstract shapes, the faceted cover similarly decorated, the sloping sides applied with finely-detailed openwork bird bracket finials, the dark green bronze with areas of malachite encrustation
21¾ in. (55.3 cm.) high

Special notice

VAT rate of 5% is payable on hammer price plus buyer's premium.

Lot Essay

A similar example from the Alfred Pillsbury Collection, now in the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, is illustrated by Max Loehr in Ritual Vessels of Bronze Age China, p. 156, no. 70. Like the present example, the decoration is divided into horizontal areas separated by narrow bands with a plain area around the lower body and panels of decoration filling the foot. However, the present example is decorated along the vertical edges not left plain. Compare also the example from the Eugene Meyer Collection illustrated by Pope et.al., in The Freer Chineses Bronzes, vol.I, Washington 1967, p. 513, pl. 94, where the similar decoration is divided into a lattice configuration rather than horizontally, and where the finials are of a simpler hooked circular design. The authors suggest that the technique involves cutting out the surface of the bronze and inlaying it with copper, silver and malachite. Compare also the cover with bird finial brackets on a fanghu sold in these Rooms, 11 June 1990, lot 28.

The result of Oxford Authentication Ltd. thermoluminescence test no. C101x84 is consistent with the dating of this lot.

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