Page 33 - SHANG, bronzes of the Shang Dynasty , March 18th , 2021 , Christie's New York.

Fig. 3 Sumitomo Collection, Japan. Image courtesy of the Sen-Oku Hakukokan Museum. Fig 4. One of a pair of gong from the tomb of Lady Fu Hao, Collection of the Institute of
圖三 住友家族珍藏, 日本。泉屋博古館圖片提供。 Archaeology, CASS, Beijing. Image from King Wu Ding and Lady Hao: Art and Culture of the Late
Shang Dynasty, National Palace Museum, Taiwan, 2012, p. 128. Photographer unknown.
圖四 婦好墓青銅觥(一對其一), 中國社會科學院考古研究所藏, 北京。圖片來源：
《商王武丁與后婦好─殷商盛世文化藝術》, 國立故宮博物院, 臺灣, 2012年, 頁128。 攝影師不詳。

the tiger head and owl face on the Freer gong appear solely alligator- or crocodile-like example in the collection of the
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as cover decoration and do not connect or relate to decorative Shanxi Museum, Taiyuan. Although its decorative style is
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elements on the vessel itself. Rather than describing two related to that of the Luboshez and related gong vessels,
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different animals, one at the front and another at the rear, the Shanxi Museum piece seems an unlikely ancestor, given
the Freer gong assumes the form of a single water bird its very different shape; perhaps it represents a different
whose head is at the back and whose long neck serves as the interpretation of the gong, or perhaps it is a related but
vessel’s handle. The bird’s wings, which extend back from a functionally different vessel type.
coil suggesting the shoulder joint, enliven the vessel’s sides,
while the feathers of its tail sweep upward to embellish the Gong vessels with taotie decoration first appeared at Anyang
underside of the spout. Because the tiger head and owl face about the same time as the gong of the Luboshez group.
lack visually supporting bodies on the vessel, the overall Also dating to the late thirteenth or early twelfth century BC,
decorative scheme is less well integrated than those of the a gong in the collection of Alfred Fisk Pillsbury (1869–1950)
Luboshez group. at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts is among the earliest of
those emblazoned with a taotie mask (50.46.104a,b). 12
The ferocious tiger head at the front of the Luboshez gong
finds counterparts in those of marble sculptures found Gong vessels with taotie décor became the most popular over
in Shang royal tombs. A marble sculpture representing time, supplanting those with tiger-and-owl décor. Thus, the
a “Kneeling Anthropomorphic Figure with Tiger Head” gong vessels in the Luboshez group, which arguably claim the
excavated in 1928 from Xibeigang Tomb M1001 at Anyang most dynamic decoration of all gong vessels, are the rarest
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1001 is virtually identical in style and appearance. (The type and likely represent an initial, experimental phase in
marble figure is now in the collection of the Museum of the the evolution of the gong. Virtually all Shang-dynasty gong
Institute of History and Philology, Academia Sinica, Taipei, vessels produced in the late Anyang period, in the twelfth and
Taiwan). The squared head, flat muzzle, thick lips, bared teeth eleventh centuries BC, are decorated with taotie masks that
and fangs, bulging eyes, and high-relief, planar horns on the rise in relief above the leiwen ground. As witnessed by a vessel
bronze and marble pieces so closely resemble each other that in the Guennol Collection of Alastair Bradley Martin (1915 -
one could have served as the model for the other; more likely, 2010) at the Brooklyn Museum (72.163a-b), their covers are
however, each descends from a now-lost model or prototype. cast with the heads of owls and ferocious animals, but those
The ferocious head on the Luboshez gong also shows heads do not relate in any way to the taotie masks or other
kinship to the heads on small jade sculptures of the period, creatures depicted on the vessel itself. 13
such as the yellow nephrite figure representing a “Kneeling
Anthropomorphic Figure with Tiger Head” excavated in 1997 Several gong vessels reflect an attempt to hybridize the two
in Shanxi province and now in the collection of the Shanxi variant decorative schemes. A gong in the collection of
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Museum, Taiyuan. 10 the Norton Museum of Art, West Palm Beach, FL (52.7a-b),
for example, has its surfaces divided into compartments
The origin of the gong remains unclear, as antecedents, but lacks the taotie masks generally associated with such
if any, have yet to be identified among Neolithic ceramics compartmentalized surfaces. An elongated creature,
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and early Shang bronzes. It has been claimed that “classic presumably a tiger, rises from the footring and through the
gong vessels,” as represented by the Luboshez group, trace front compartments to connect with the ferocious animal
their origin to the rare bronze covered boat-shaped vessels head at the front of the cover, while dragons occupy the
that are also termed gong, such as the famous elongated compartments at the back.

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