Page 140 - Deydier VOL.2 Meiyintang Collection of Chinese Bronses

181. Ritual bronze food vessel fu
Shang dynasty, Yinxu period, circa 13 - 11 centuries bc.
th
th
商代殷墟時期青銅簠
Height: 23.5 cm, Diameter: 31.4 cm

A very rare cauldron, known as a fu, used for cooking Inscription:
food offerings for ancestral worship ceremonies. The ▪ A partial inscription of 10 characters is visible inside
vessel consists of a deep, round, flat-bottomed bowl with the body of the vessel. It reads: “X Marquis Xiang used
a thick, outwardly protruding lip and a pair of loop-like (X) to make (this) precious ritual vessel; (may) sons
moveable handles ending in animal-head masks attached and grandsons…” 《 X 享伯用作寶尊彝子孫...》.
to its sides. The upper section of the vessel’s deep-bowl-
like body is beautifully cast on front and back with a high Provenance:
band of stylized silk worms surrounding a central taotie ▪ Ioka Collection, Japan (reputed to have come from the
mask with a narrow lower border of leiwen from which Anyang area, Henan Province, China, around 1940).
extend long, triangular, leaf-like motifs filled with stylized ▪ Purchased by Yamanaka in the 1940s.
cicadas on a leiwen background. ▪ Galerie Christian Deydier, Paris, France.

The vessel has a dark patina. Exhibited:
▪ Treasures from Ancient China, Asia Week /New York,
Galerie Christian Deydier, Paris 2009, catalogue
p. 6 - 9.
Published:
▪ Deydier Ch., Treasures from Ancient China, Asia
Week / New York, Paris 2009, p. 6 - 9.

Similar example:
▪ The only other recorded cauldron of this type is
published in Hayashi M., In Shu Jidai Seidoki no
Kenkyu (In Shu Seidoki Soran Ichi), Conspectus of Yin
and Zhou Bronzes, Tokyo 1984, Vol. 1 - Plates, p. 81,
no. 1, and in Zhongguo Qingtongqi Quanji, Vol. 2 -
Shang 2, Beijing 1997, p. 82 - 83, nos. 80 - 81, and in
Zhongguo Wenwu Jingcai Daquan, Qingtongqi, p. 22,
no. 75.

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