Page 14 - Christies September 13 to 14th Fine Chinese Works of Art New York

PROPERTY FROM A PRIVATE AMERICAN COLLECTION
1104
A BRONZE RITUAL TRIPOD FOOD VESSEL, LIDING
LATE SHANG DYNASTY, 11TH CENTURY BC
The tri-lobed body is raised on three slender, columnar legs, and is cast
above each leg with a large taotie mask with rounded eyes fanked by a
pair of descending dragons and reserved on a leiwen ground below a narrow
band of leiwen. A pair of bail handles rise from the rim. The side of the
interior is cast with a single character, ya. The bronze is of dark grey color.
8Ω in. (21.6 cm.) high
$80,000-120,000

PROVENANCE
C. T. Loo & Co., New York, before 1976.
The Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Leo S. Bing;
Christie’s New York, 24 March 2004, lot 107.
(inscription)
EXHIBITED
Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Ancient Ritual Bronzes of China,
3 February-25 April 1976.
LITERATURE
Chen Mengjia, Yin Zhou qingtongqi fenlei tulu (In Shu seidoki bunrui zuroku; The cruciform character ya is sometimes termed as yaxing (ya shape) and
A Corpus of Chinese Bronzes in American Collections), Tokyo, 1977, nos. A49 is often combined with other pictographs to represent clans. In the Shang
(illustration) and R447 (inscription). dynasty, clans with the ya added to their clan names are believed to be those
Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Ancient Ritual Bronzes of China, that were conferred with the title of Marquis. It is very rare to fnd a single-
Los Angeles, 1976, no. 16. character inscription of ya. See, a late Shang bronze liding cast with a single
Zhou Fagao, Sandaijijin wencun bu (Supplements of surviving writings from ya character in the National Palace Museum, Taipei, illustrated by Chang
the Xia, Shang and Zhou dynasties), Taipei, 1980, no. 447 (inscription only). Kuang-yuan in A Catalogue of Shang Dynasty Bronze Inscriptions, Ancient
Yan Yiping, Jinwen Zongji (Corpus of Bronze Inscriptions), Taipei, 1983, no. 102 Chinese Script From the 1st Millenium B.C., Taipei, 1995, no. 15.
(inscription only). 商晚期 亞鼎
The Institute of Archaeology, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences,
Yinzhou jinwen jicheng (Compendium of Yin and Zhou Bronze Inscriptions),
Beijing, 1984, no. 1147 (inscription only).
Wu Zhenfeng, Shangzhou qingtongqi mingwen ji tuxiang jicheng (Compendium
of Inscriptions and Images of Bronzes from the Shang and Zhou Dynasties),
Shanghai, 2012, vol. 1, p. 71, no. 82.

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