Page 111 - 2020 Sept Important Chinese Art Sotheby's NYC Asia Week

9/2/2020 Important Chinese Art | Sotheby's

Archaic bronze zun of this flattened form are discussed by Robert W. Bagley in Shang Ritual Bronzes in the Arthur M. Sackler
Collections, Washington D.C., 1987, pp 278-9, where the author notes that this particular form differs significantly from the Anyang
shouldered zun, and is more similar to pre-Anyang versions. Bagley thus suggests that it could represent an earlier pre-Anyang
shape, or one that was revived at the end of the Anyang period. He further proposes that these shouldered zun are likely to have
been produced in provincial centers, as evidenced in the rendering of the birds flanking the taotie masks, which he compares to
the birds on a fang zun, acc. no. 186, in the National Palace Museum, Taipei, likely cast in the Yangzi region.

This piece bears close resemblance to a shouldered zun unearthed in Qingjian, Shaanxi province, and illustrated in Shaanxi chutu
Shang Zhou qingtong qi [Bronzes of Shang and Zhou dynasties unearthed in Shaanxi province], Beijing, 1979, col. pl. 5.

See also a shouldered zun of similar form but with birds on the shoulder, unearthed in Huixian, Henan province, illustrated in
Zhongguo qingtong qi quanji [Complete Collection of Chinese Bronzes], vol. 1, Beijing, 1996, pl. 120; one with a slightly taller foot,
sold in these rooms, 4th December 1984, lot 11; and another with a taller and flared foot, from the collection of Hans Juergen von
Lochow, illustrated in Gustav Ecke, Sammlung Lochow: Chinesische Bronzen, Beijing, 1943, pls VIIa-c; and sold in our London
rooms, 7th December 1993, lot 11.

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