Page 47 - Fine Chinese Art Bonhams London May 2018

來源： 香港夢蝶軒收藏

展覽：
1990年10月12日至12月2日於香港市政局暨香港東
方陶瓷學會「青銅聚英：中國古代與鄂爾多斯青銅
器展覽」展出
2001年9月21日至2005年10月5日於香港美術館
「金木水火土：香港文物收藏精品展」展出
2012年2月12日至11月7日於香港中文大學美術館
「雲行雨施：中國龍文物」特展展出

出版：
J.Rawson及E.Bunker著，《青銅聚英：中國古代與
鄂爾多斯青銅器》，香港，1990年，頁116，編號29

The pair of the gu vessels belongs to a rare group of
ritual bronze vessels made specially commissioned
for the female ancestor, mother Ri Xin from the
Ning clan, of which only sixteen would appear to
be recorded: seven ritual bronzes from the Idemitsu
Museum of Art, Tokyo, include a jiao, a gui, a gu,
a you, a fangyi, a fangzun and a zun, illustrated in
Ancient Chinese Arts in the Idemitsu Collection,
Tokyo, 1989, nos.17, 36, 43, 44, 58, 67 and 76; a
further pair of Mu Ning Ri Xin inscribed jiao vessels
were sold at Sotheby’s London, 10 June 1986, lot
50, one of which was sold later at Christie’s New
York, 17 March 2017, lot 1011; another pair of jiao
vessels, also from the Mengdiexuan Collection, were
sold at Christie’s New York, 22-23 March 2018,
lot 908; see also three bronze vessels from the
Mengdiexuan Collection, including a fangding, a zun,
and a gui, which were sold at Christie’s New York,
22-23 March 2018, lot 909, 910 and 911.
Gu vessels of this elegant form were used as wine
containers within a ritual context and date from as
early as the Erlitou phase of the Shang dynasty,
circa 2000 to 1500 BC. The extant examples dating
to this period are generally cast with a single band
of decoration and were of stouter form, which
becomes more elegant in form and more complex
in design further into the dynasty. The introduction
of notched flanges to the middle section and foot of
the gu seems to occur in the 13th century BC; see
a comparable example illustrated by R.W.Bagley,
Shang Ritual Bronzes in the Arthur M.Sackler
Collections, Washington D.C., 1987, no.31.