Page 35 - March 17 2017 Chinese Art NYC, Christies

Most Chinese archaic bronze ritual vessels claim geometric forms (circular, (base)
cylindrical, square, rectangular, etc.), though a few examples—of various
functional types—were made in zoomorphic shapes based on animals known
in China in early times, including rhinoceroses, water bufalo, elephants,
tapirs, owls, ducks, and other birds among them. Most animal-form vessels
are for liquids, presumably wine, and are either containers or pouring vessels.
Shang-dynasty, zoomorphic vessels tend to be naturalistically shaped—even
if they sometimes sport taotie masks, leiwen patterns, and other surface
decoration; the most popular ones tended to be you wine vessels in the form
of a standing owl. A few Shang vessels combined two animals positioned
back to back and presented in profle; you wine containers occasionally are
shaped as two addorsed owls, for example, and gong wine-pouring vessels
typically have a crouching tiger at the front and a standing owl at the rear.
Such gong vessels are often characterized as metamorphic forms, as they
join two disparate animals to create a single vessel. Zoomorphic vessels were
produced in fewer numbers during the late Western and early Eastern Zhou
periods, when this small ewer was made. When produced, such animal-form
vessels, like this bird-form ewer, often were more stylized and more fanciful,
and their features more exaggerated than those of earlier periods. In fact, the
surface ornamentation of bronzes of that era, including that of animal-form
vessels, also became more fanciful and stylized, often covering the surface
with scale-like patterns and incorporating large, scrolled elements—in this
instance, the scrolls representing the bird’s wings and the repeating, circular,
scale-like patterns the bird’s feathers.

Birds appeared among the surface decoration of Shang bronzes, but they
typically played a secondary role to the taotie mask, which was the principal
decorative motif. In Western Zhou ritual bronzes, by contrast, birds often
came to the fore as the principal motif, those bronzes showing a marked
preference for long-tailed birds. In that context, this rare vessel’s form mirrors
a type of surface ornamentation favored in Western Zhou bronzes.

Zhou-dynasty, bird-form ewers are exceptionally rare, particularly ones
that exhibit this vessel’s complexity, however, a very similar ewer from the
Collection of Robert Hatfeld Ellsworth was sold at Christie’s New York,
17 March 2015, lot 5 (Fig. 1). See, also, the closely related, if slightly less
complex, example sold at Christie’s New York, 22 March 1999, lot 194, and
the bronze vessel cover in the form of a bird’s head, of slightly later date (6th-
5th century BC), from the Sze Yuan Tang Collection, sold at Christie’s New
York, 16 September 2010, lot 843.

(another view)