Page 38 - Status & Ritual Chinese Archaic Bronzes

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*8 The interior of the foot is cast with a single graph of unknown reading,
although it is likely to be a personal name. Two early Western Zhou bronze
A BRONZE RITUAL WINE VESSEL, GU vessels bearing similar graphs are illustrated by Wang Tao and Liu Yu in
A Selection of Early Chinese Bronzes with Inscriptions from Sotheby’s and
LATE SHANG DYNASTY, ANYANG PERIOD (12TH-11TH CENTURY BC) Christie’s Sales , Shanghai, 2007, nos. 257 and 258, sold by Sotheby’s in 1988
and 1981 respectively.
晚商安陽 青銅饕餮蕉葉紋觚
Compare with a gu of similar form and decoration in the Freer Gallery of Art,
The mid-section and spreading lower body of the slender vessel are crisply illustrated in The Freer Chinese Bronzes, Washington, 1967, vol. I, pp. 58-63,
decorated with taotie masks set against a leiwen ground and separated by no. 8. A gu illustrated by R. Bagley also features similar fanged taotie, leiwen
scored vertical fanges. There are bird motifs in the narrow upper register and cicada ornamentation (see R. Bagley, Shang Ritual Bronzes in the Arthur
of the lower body, and four blades of stylised cicada design rising from the M. Sackler Collections, Washington DC and Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1987,
mid-section, decorating the faring neck. The interior of the foot is cast with a pp. 240-241, no.33.)
single graph. The surface has a mottled pale greyish-green patina with areas
of malachite encrustation. Another example is illustrated in J.J. Lally & Co. Chinese Archaic Bronzes: The
Collection of Daniel Shapiro, New York, 2014, pp. 14-15, no. 3.
11æ in. (29.8 cm.) high
來源:
£30,000-50,000 $47,000-78,000 於1975年 6月4日前購自美國紐約古董商Rare Art，Inc
€42,000-69,000 重要歐洲私人珍藏

PROVENANCE

With Rare Art, Inc., New York, before 4 June 1975.
From an important private European collection.

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