Page 78 - September 20 2021 Chinese Works of Art Bonhams NYC

PROPERTY FROM THE ASBJORN LUNDE FOUNDATION
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A BLACK POTTERY TWO-HANDLED AMPHORA Many non-Han people lived in southwest China, even after the
Western Han Dynasty establishment of the Qin and Han dynasties. Unusually shaped
The low-set ovoid body carved with two whorl-shaped reserves on amphorae, such as the present lot, may have been the product of
each side and divided by two broad strap handles attached from the the Qiang, a tribal people who probably came from the steppe but
mouth rim and the body, bands of geometric patterns carved into the later also lived in the region of the Dian in southwest China. Vessels
neck. such as this with lozenge shaped mouths and twin flat handles have
9 1/8in (23.2cm) high been discovered in the Lifan area in present day Sichuan and are
thus sometimes known as Lifan ware. A similar vessel in the British
$4,000 - 6,000 Museum (acc no. 1932,0216.1) is illustrated by S. Vainker, Chinese
Pottery and Porcelain: From Prehistory to the Present, London, 1991,
西漢 黑陶雙耳罐 p.43, fig.30.

For other slightly smaller examples, see Sotheby’s, New York, 8
December 2011, lot 143, and also Bonhams, New York, 19 March
2018, lot 8034.

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