Page 26 - March 17 2017 Chinese Art NYC, Christies

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A BRONZE RITUAL TRIPOD FOOD VESSEL, DING

LATE SHANG DYNASTY, 13TH-12TH CENTURY BC
The vessel is raised on three slightly tapering cylindrical legs cast with cicada blades and the body is cast
with three taotie masks, each centered on and divided by low fanges, below two upright bail handles on
the rim. The interior has a single graph.
7Ω in. (19.1 cm.) high
$200,000-300,000

PROVENANCE

Sano Art Museum, Mishima City, Shizuoka, Japan, by 1986.
Collection of the Sano Art Museum, Mishima City, Shizuoka, Japan; Sotheby’s New York,
14 September 2011, lot 261.

LITERATURE

Sano Bijutsuken Zohinsho, Sano Art Museum, 1986, p. 74, no. 97.
Ding vessels decorated with a single frieze of large taotie frst appeared in the early Yinxu period, circa
late 13th century BC. This successful design continued to be popular throughout the middle and late
Yinxu period. The present ding, with its high-relief decoration and intricate leiwen ground, is typical of
Loehr Style V, the fnal stage of the development of Shang bronzes. Two bronze ding of similar form
and decoration, one bearing a ge clan sign and the other bearing an indecipherable clan sign and two-
character inscription fu ding (father ding) are in the Shanghai Museum collection, illustrated by Chen
Peifen in Xia Shang Zhou qingtongqi yanjiu (Research on Bronzes from Xia Shang and Zhou Dynasties),
Shanghai, 2004, vol. 1, nos. 54 and 55 respectively. Compare, also, a ding with similar decorative
scheme, but the horns of the taotie formed by dragons, sold at Christie’s New York, 20-21 March 2014,
lot 2013.
商晚期 青銅饕餮紋鼎

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