Page 86 - Bonhams Olivier Collection Early Chinese Art November 2018

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Jia with large, broad lobes and wide, flaring necks were popular from who had preceded them. The pictographic character quan can
the late Shang period and into the early Western Zhou period, mainly be either read as the emblem of a family or a family name, which
in undercoated versions. By the middle Western Zhou, tall jia had been appears to have been active during the late Shang dynasty and early
replaced by shorter ones with proportionally shorter necks. Rong Geng Western Zhou dynasty. Examples bearing the same character are
indicates the function of jia was to keep the wine warm by burning mainly in a style seen on those found in today’s Henan Province,
charcoal underneath, see Rong Geng, Shangzhou yiqi tongkao (The see a bronze ding inscribed with the character quan, late Shang
Study of Shang and Zhou Ritual Bronze), Beijing, vol.1, 1941, p.45. This dynasty, which is illustrated by Wang Tao and Liu Yu, A Selection of
argument can be proved by a number of excavated jia which retained Early Chinese Bronzes with Inscriptions from Sotheby’s and Christie’s
dark charcoal ash on the bottom and limescale in the interior caused by Sales, Shanghai, 2007, no.44; see another bronze zhi bearing quan,
heating; see jia unearthed in Zhengzhou, Henan Province, tomb C8M32, early Western Zhou dynasty, which is illustrated by Liu Tizhi, Xiaojiao
no.2 and tomb M3, no.4, noted by Zhu Fenghan, Zhongguo gudai Jingge Jinwen Taben (Rubbings of Archaic Bronze Inscriptions at the
qingtongqi (Chinese Archaic Bronze), Tianjin, 1994, p.93. Xiaojiaojingge Studio), vol.5, p.75, no.2.

The seven-character inscription beneath the handle reads: Compare with two related bronze jia, the first in the Arthur M. Sackler
犬白乍父寶尊彝 Collections, 12th-11th century BC, and the second, the Mu Gui
jia, said to be from Anyang, in the Shanghai Museum, illustrated by
Which may be translated as: R.W.Bagley, Shang Ritual Bronzes in the Arthur M. Sackler Collections,
‘Earl of Quan made this precious sacrificial vessel for the late father’ Cambridge MA, 1987, pp.172-173 and 175, fig.10.2. See also
another similar jia, Shang or Western Zhou dynasty, in the Metropolitan
This would suggest that this vessel was placed in a tomb to supply Museum of Art, New York, illustrated by J.Rawson, Western Zhou
the ancestor with wine. However, it could also be that the deceased Ritual Bronzes from the Arthur M. Sackler Collections, Volume IIB,
was required to continue the rituals in the afterlife to honour ancestors Cambridge MA, 1990, p.656, fig.110.3.

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