Page 15 - September 23 to 24 Important Chinese Art Christie's NYC

PROPERTY FROM A DISTINGUISHED PRIVATE
COLLECTION
705
A RARE COPPER-INLAID BRONZE
RITUAL WINE VESSEL, HU
WARRING STATES PERIOD (475-221 BC)
The bronze vessel is inlaid with copper in
seven registers, including confronted pairs of
antlered deer flanked by addorsed pairs of birds,
confronted dragons flanked by scrolls, and
stylized taotie masks flanked by kui dragons. The
shoulders are set on each side with a beast-mask
handle suspending a loose ring.
18 in. (45.7 cm.) high
$25,000-35,000

PROVENANCE:
The Collection of Robert Hatfield Ellsworth, no.
B3202, prior to 1999.
Sotheby’s New York, 19 March 2002, lot 28.
A similar hu (but with a cover) is illustrated
by J. So, Eastern Zhou Ritual Bronzes from the
Arthur M. Sackler Collections, 1995, vol. III, no.
44, where the author, p. 257, describes how the
motifs "were first cast in copper, then inserted
into the mold and held in place with spacers".
This technique was more effective in keeping
the copper decoration in place than the more
conventional method of hammering the copper
into cast or incised depressions. Other similarly
decorated hu lacking covers are in museum
collections, including one in The Metropolitan
Museum of Art, New York, accession number
29.100.545, formerly in the Havemeyer
Collection; one in The Art Institute of Chicago,
accession number 1928.143, formerly in the
Lucy Maud Buckingham Collection; and one in
the Fujii Yurinkan Museum, Kyoto, where it is
registered as an Important Art Object by the
Japanese government. Another hu with a cover
was included in the exhibition Chinese Archaic
Bronzes, Sculpture and Works of Art, J.J. Lally &
Co., New York, June 1992, no. 24.

重要私人珍藏
戰國 青銅錯紅銅壺
來源:
安思遠珍藏, 編號B3202, 1999年以前入藏。
紐約蘇富比, 2002年3月19日, 拍品編號 28。

13