Page 18 - 2019 September 13th Christie's New York Important Chinese Works of Art

806
A VERY RARE MINIATURE BRONZE RITUAL WINE
VESSEL AND COVER, YOU
LATE SHANG DYNASTY, 12TH-11TH CENTURY BC
The pear-shaped body of oval section is raised on a foot
encircled by a band of stylized dragons and is fnely cast
on each side with a large taotie mask formed by a pair of
dragons confronted on a fange, their raised, hooked tails
positioned above small dragons separated by further
fanges, all below pairs of birds centered by the animal-mask
terminals of the arched handle which is cast on top with
parallel grooves. The cover is cast at each end with further
taotie masks above beak-like projections and a band of
stylized dragons on the vertical sides, all below a segmented,
conical fnial. The bronze has a dark greenish-grey patina
and minor malachite encrustation.
4Ω in. (11.5 cm.) high with handle

$200,000-300,000

PROVENANCE
Sotheby’s London, 14 March 1972, lot 10.
J. T. Tai & Co., New York.
Arthur M. Sackler Collections.
Else Sackler.
Elizabeth A. Sackler.
EXHIBITED
New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art,
The Arts of Ancient China, 1973-1977.
LITERATURE
D. H. Delbanco, Art from Ritual: Ancient Chinese Bronze
Vessels from the Arthur M. Sackler Collections,
Washington, D.C., 1983, pp. 58-59, no.17.
R. W. Bagley, Shang Ritual Bronzes in the Arthur M. Sackler
Collections, Washington, D.C., 1987, pp. 378-81, no. 65.

This you is one of the smallest among Shang dynasty
you vessels. Its size is about half to one third of a regular
you, and yet the elegant and architectural proportions,
the precise casting, and the thick walls are of the same
caliber as the fnest of it’s regular-size relatives. Such
miniatures are very rare. The you of this type frst appeared
in the late Yinxu phase II (c. 1200 B.C.), and thereafter
became one of the most important wine vessels of the
late Shang-early Western Zhou period. It was part of the
bronze ritual paraphernalia used during ceremonies of
ofering wine and food to ancestors. However, the exact
function of miniatures like the present example is unclear.
One most plausible theory is that they are nongqi (vessels
for play). A tiny bronze fangding lid (6.3 x 5.2 cm.) bearing
a four-character inscription, wang zuo X nong, was found
in 1975 at Anyang and is illustrated by R. W. Bagley
together with a you vessel (20.2 cm. high) bearing the same
inscription in Shang Ritual Bronzes in the Arthur M. Sackler
Collections, Washington, D.C., 1987, pp. 380-81, fgs. 65.2
and 65.3 respectively. Archaeologist Zheng Zhenxiang
suggested that nong means nongqi, or toys, and translated
the inscription as “Made by the king for X to play with,”
however, Bagley raised objections that there is a wide
variation in sizes among bronzes identifed by inscriptions
as nongqi and nong can also be interpreted as ‘use’, ibid,p.
380. In any case, the fact that the fangding lid was made
by a wang (king) for a female (the indecipherable character
X contains the radical for female) attests that these rare
miniatures must have been reserved for the highest ranking
members of the elite.
A regular-sized you (22 cm. high) of similar proportions and
with similar cast designs, but now missing its handle, is also
illustrated ibid, 1987, p. 372, no. 64. Another regular-sized
you (29.8 cm. high) of similar form and decoration was sold
at Christie’s New York, 21 September 2004, lot 147.
商晚期 青銅小提梁卣
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