Page 35 - Christies IMportant Chinese Art Sept 26 2020 NYC

PROPERTY FROM AN IMPORTANT PRIVATE ASIAN COLLECTION
1516
AN UNUSUAL BRONZE BOTTLE-FORM VESSEL, HU
HAN DYNASTY (206 BC-AD 220)
The hu is decorated overall with various decorative bands, including Both the shape and decoration of this vase are quite unusual. Similar
three wide bands of feathers on the neck, and there are two slightly bands of engraved decoration that include feathers, sawtooth, criss-
concave bands encircling the shoulder. The bronze has blue-green cross and diamond pattern, can be seen on the sides of a bronze
encrustation. scoop with dragon-head handle dated Western Han, excavated in
1971 from the Wangniuling M1, Hepu, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous
11æ in. (28.8 cm.) high
Region and illustrated in Ou Luo Yicui: Guangxi Baiyue Wenhua
Wenwu Jingpinyi, Beijing, 2006, pp. 121-23. A similar diamond pattern
$15,000-25,000
can also be seen on a wide band that decorates the sides of a stem
cup, dated Eastern Han, which was excavated in 1955, Guixian
PROVENANCE:
Acquired in Hong Kong, 1990. Railway Station M74, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, and is
illustrated ibid., p. 167. This stem cup is also illustrated by Zhixian
Jason Sun, Age of Empires: Art of the Qin and Han Dynasties, The
漢 青銅幾何紋壺 Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 2017, p. 199, no. 116, where
the author notes that the unusual decoration, which is engraved rather
than cast, is representative of a "rare group of bronzes" produced
in "far southern and southwestern China," and was most likely
influenced by bronzes of South and Southeast Asia.
33