Page 21 - Sotheby's Hong Kong Important Chinese Works of Art, Oct. 9, 2022

fig. 1 fig. 2
A marble figure of a frog (22.8 by 16.5 by h. 14.6 cm), Pre-Anyang. Collection of Richard A stone cicada (13.8 cm), Shang dynasty, after Tomb of Lady Hao at Yinxu in Anyang,
C. Bull, Philadelphia, after Alfred Salmony, 'A pre-Anyang Marble Sculpture', Artibus Beijing, 1980, pl. 176:1
Asiae, vol. 20, no. 4, 1957, pp. 239-40.
圖二
圖一 商 石蟬（長13.8公分）
商前安陽時期 大理石雕蛙（22.8 x 16.5 x 高14.6公分） 出處：《殷墟婦好墓》，北京，1980年，圖版176:1
Richard Bull 舊藏，費城
出處：Alfred Salmony，〈A pre-Anyang Marble Sculpture〉，《Artibus Asiae》，
卷20，第4期，1957年，頁239-40

This simple yet highly evocative carving is one of a very rare in the collection of the Institute of History and Philology,
group of large marble carvings that represent the dawn of Academia Sinica, Taipei, which were excavated from tomb
Chinese sculpture. The block has been skilfully carved in a 1500 at Xibeigang, Anyang (fig. 3), and a group of marble
gentle geometric manner to represent a stylised frog, the tigers, dragons and a buffalo recovered from the tomb of
powerful back legs carefully shaped in shallow flat relief with Fu Hao in 1976, illustrated in King Wu Ding and Lady Hao:
a central groove, the pupils of the eyes conveyed by small Art and Culture of the Late Shang Dynasty, National Palace
indented holes. Museum, Taipei, 2012, cat. no. IV-3; and a cicada illustrated
There are two other known marble frog carvings of this in Tomb of Lady Hao at Yinxu in Anyang, Beijing, 1980, pl.
size and form from the mid-Shang dynasty: one from the 176:1 (fig. 2). Close analysis of the carvings from Fu Hao’s
collection of Richard Bull, sold in our New York rooms, 6th tomb, that dates to circa 1200 BC in the late Shang period,
December 1983, lot 244, and another, offered in our New corroborates Salmony’s analysis of the earlier date of the
York rooms, 19th November 1982, lot 88. Richard Bull frog, as the Fu Hao carvings are indeed less
stylised, and are incised with anatomical and geometric
The frog from the Richard Bull collection (fig. 1) was details.
illustrated in Alfred Salmony, 'A pre-Anyang Marble
Sculpture', Artibus Asiae, vol. XX, no. 4, 1957, pp. 239-40, Only a very small number of Shang marble figures has been
where the author argued convincingly that it predates recorded in private collections, including a marble bear
other carved stone animals from Anyang, which are more now in Seattle Art Museum, illustrated in Richard E. Fuller,
naturalistic in their modelling, and are incised with geometric Handbook, Seattle Art Museum: Selected Works From The
and figure motifs. He also concluded that the combination Permanent Collections, Section: Chinese Art, 1951, fig. I; a
of large wings and toad-like body makes it difficult to assign marble buffalo from the collection of Mr and Mrs Sedgwick,
the animal to any particular species. Richard Bull himself London, illustrated in the Catalogue of the International
referred to the frog as one of the favourites in his collection, Exhibition of Chinese Art, Royal Academy of Arts, London,
describing it as a ‘pre-Anyang marble frog that would have 1935-36, cat. no. 268A; a marble elephant from the Guennol
delighted Brancusi’. collection, illustrated by Ida Ely Rubin, ed., The Guennol
Collection, vol. 1, New York, 1975, pp. 259-60; and a marble
Shang dynasty marble carvings are extremely rare, much water buffalo catalogued as late Shang, originally acquired
more so than other ritual works of art and vessels created from Robert H. Ellsworth in 1997, sold at Christie’s New York,
from bronze, jade, bone or ivory. Other recorded examples 17th September 2010, lot 1004, and again 21st March 2013,
of Shang marble include a small group of animal carvings lot 1258.

The present lot (25.8 by 17 by h. 12 cm)
此拍品（25.8 x 17 x 高12 公分）
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