Page 25 - Fine Chinese Art Christies London May 2018

The inside of the foot of the vessel bears an inscription consisting of four
characters, Wei Fu Fu Xin. A dedication to Fu Xin (Father Xin) is accompanied
by two graphs. Above is cast an emblem showing four footprints encircling
a rectangular ring, likely equivalent to a simpler character of oracle script,
transcribed as wei. This may be read as a clan insignia, and commonly
accompanies ancestral dedications, as it does here with Fu Xin, along with
another pictograph depicting a quiver of arrows.
Compare the present vessel to a zun of similar style, dated to the Late
Shang period, in the Shanghai Museum, illustrated by Chen Peifen in
Ancient Chinese Bronzes in the Shanghai Museum, London, 1995, p. 41.
Another example of a zun of this unusual form can be found in the Pillsbury
Collection, which is slightly smaller in size but almost identical in form and
decoration. (See B. Karlgren, A Catalogue of the Chinese Bronzes in the Alfred
F. Pillsbury Collection, Minneapolis, 1951, pp. 78-79, no. 26).

A comparable zun, similar in form but without fanges on the upper part,
is illustrated by R. Bagley in Shang Ritual Bronzes in the Arthur M. Sackler
Collections, Washington DC and Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1987, pp. 310-
311. Another example of a vessel with prominent fanges, fared base and
bulbous mid-section is the Boge zun of the Baoji City Museum Collection,
illustrated by Li Xixing, The Shaanxi Bronzes, Xi’an, 1994, p. 170.
A similar fared bronze zun was sold at Christie’s New York, 13-14 September
2012, lot 1226.

晚商/西周早期 青銅饕餮紋尊

銘文: 「 衛箙父辛 」

來源:
日本京都藏家S. Kawai 舊藏
荷蘭藏家Dr. A. F Philips (1874-1951)私人舊藏
1978年3月13日於倫敦蘇富比拍賣，拍品21號
重要歐洲私人珍藏
著錄:
梅原末治 著《Nihon Shucho Shina Kodo Seikwa》，1960
年，大阪，卷二，編號135
巴納、張光裕 著 《中日歐美澳紐所見所拓所摹金文彙
編》, 1978年, 卷九, 編號1408
周法高 著《三代吉金文存補》 1980年，台北，第645號
Minao Hayashi 著《Studies on Yin and Zhou Bronze
Decoration: A Conspectus of Yin and Zhou Bronze Vessels》
，1986年， 第223頁，編號20

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