Page 12 - Christies IMportant Chinese Art Sept 26 2020 NYC

PROPERTY FROM AN IMPORTANT PRIVATE ASIAN COLLECTION
1503
A PAIR OF BRONZE RITUAL TRIPOD WINE VESSELS, JUE
LATE SHANG DYNASTY, 13TH-12TH CENTURY BC
Each is raised on tall, graceful, blade-shaped legs and cast with a band The shape of these well-proportioned jue is particularly elegant. The
of taotie masks formed by confronted dragons with bird-form tails, one tall, slightly curved, blade-shaped legs are longer in proportion to the
mask centered by a flange, the other by the handle and a single clan body than usual, thereby creating a sense of lightness. The body is
sign, cast on the body beneath the handle. also rather unusual, with a shallow, rounded lower body below the
7¬ in. (19.8 cm.) high, cloth box (2) taotie band with pronounced upper and lower edges, which combined
with the flanges create a distinct, slightly angular profile. A jue of
comparable shape, also decorated with a taotie band interrupted by
$50,000-70,000
flanges below a band of triangles, is illustrated by Robert W. Bagley,
Shang Ritual Bronzes in the Arthur M. Sackler Collections, vol. 1, The
PROVENANCE:
Acquired in Hong Kong, 1991. Arthur M. Sackler Foundation, Washington, D.C., 1987, pp. 184-5, no.
13, which is dated 13th century BC. In the entry for the Sackler jue,
the author mentions that comparable vessels in Fu Hao's tomb, two
商晚期 青銅饕餮紋爵一對
of which are illustrated, p. 182, fig. 12.1, "argues for a date at the end
of the first century of the Anyang period." Three other similar jue have
been published: one by Christian Deydier, Les Bronzes Chinois, Paris,
1980, p. 220, pl. 33; one by Richard A. Pegg and Lidong Zhang, The
MacLean Collection: Chinese Ritual Bronzes, Chicago, 2010, pp. 52-3,
no. 8; the other by Jessica Rawson, The Bella and P. P. Chiu Collection
of Ancient Chinese Bronzes, Hong Kong, 1998, pp. 50-51, no. 11.

(detail) (inscriptions)

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