Page 34 - SHANG, bronzes of the Shang Dynasty , March 18th , 2021 , Christie's New York.

SHANG EARLY CHINESE RITUAL BRONZES FROM THE DANIEL SHAPIRO COLLECTION | Daniel Shapiro 珍藏高古青銅禮器

The gong vessel fell from favor and gradually disappeared “mandate of heaven.” Therefore the use of wine was reduced
from the repertoire of ritual vessels soon after the Zhou while meat and cereals were emphasized as more righteous
conquest in the mid-eleventh century BC. Tradition asserts offerings. As a result, the gong and other wine vessels were
that the new Zhou ruler believed that excessive wine drinking gradually abandoned while new kinds of ritual vessels for food
by the Shang had led to decadence and failure to maintain were developed during the Western Zhou period.
proper observance of sacred rituals—and thus to the fall of the
dynasty in that context, he claimed that ancestral spirits had ROBERT D. MOWRY 毛瑞
shifted their mandate to the Zhou and required more sober Alan J. Dworsky Curator of Chinese Art Emeritus,
ritual practices to be observed for the Zhou to maintain the Harvard Art Museums, and
Senior Consultant, Christie’s

1 See: James Cuno et al., Harvard’s Art Museums: 100 Years of Collecting, 9 See: National Palace Museum, ed., King Wu Ding and Lady Hao: Art
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Art Museums, and New York: Harry and Culture of the Late Shang Dynasty,1st ed., (Taipei: National Palace
N. Abrams, Inc.), 1996, pp. 52-53. Museum), 2012, pp. 230-231, no. IV-3.
2 Tadashi Sengoku, Chūgoku Ōchō no Iki [The Best of Dynastic China], 10 See: “A Western Zhou Tomb at Taiqinggong, Luyi County, Henan”,
(Himeji, Japan: Hokuseisha), 2004, pp. 9-11, cat. no. 1. Kaogu, 2000, no. 9, color pl. II-4.
3 See: Sen-oku Hakukokan, ed., Sen-oku Hakko: Chūgoku kodōki hen 11 See: Daniel Shapiro et al., Ancient Chinese Bronzes: A Personal
[Ancient Chinese Bronzes in the Sen-oku Hakko Collection: The Appreciation, (London: Rasika/Sylph Editions), 2014, p. 18.
Sumitomo Collection], (Kyoto: Sen-oku Hakkokan), 2002, no. 106.
12 See: Bernhard Karlgren, A Catalogue of the Chinese Bronzes in the Alfred
4 See: Jessica Rawson, ed., Mysteries of Ancient China: New Discoveries F. Pillsbury Collection, (Minneapolis: Published for the Minneapolis
from the Early Dynasties,(London: British Museum, and New York: G. Institute of Arts by the University of Minnesota Press), 1952, pp. 89-93,
Braziller), 1996, p. 102, fig. 45-1, and cat. no. 45. Also see: Zhongguo no. 31.
shehui kexue yuan kaogu yanjiusuo bianzhu [Institute of Archaeology,
13 See: Amy Poster, Journey Through Asia: Masterpieces in the Brooklyn
Chinese Academy of Social Sciences], ed., Yinxu Fuhao Mu[Tomb of
Lady Hao at Yinxu in Anyang], 1st edition (Beijing: Wenwu chubanshe: Museum of Art, (Brooklyn: Brooklyn Museum of Art), 2003, pp. 44-45,
Xinhua shudian Beijing faxing suo faxing), 1980. no. 1.
14 For a discussion of this phenomenon, see: Robert W. Bagley, Shang
5 See: Jessica Rawson, ed., Mysteries of Ancient China, p. 102, fig. 45-2.
Ritual Bronzes in the Arthur M. Sackler Collections, (Washington, DC:
6 See: Vadime Elisseeff, Bronzes archaïques chinois au Musée Cernuschi The Arthur M. Sackler Foundation, and Cambridge, MA: The Arthur M.
[Archaic Chinese Bronzes in the Cernuschi Museum], (Paris: Sackler Museum, Harvard University), 1987, pp. 412-415.
L’Asiathèque), 1977, vol. 1, p. 134, no. 48.
15 See: John Finlay, The Chinese Collection: Selected Works from the Norton
7 See: Maxwell Hearn, “The Arts of Ancient China,” The Metropolitan Museum of Art, (West Palm Beach, FL: Norton Museum of Art), 2003,
Museum of Art Bulletin, vol. 32, no. 2, 1973/1974, no. 11. pp. 76-77, no. 1.
8 See: John Alexander Pope et al., The Freer Chinese Bronzes, vol. 1,
(Washington, DC: Freer Gallery of Art, Smithsonian Institution), (Oriental
Studies Series, vol. 1, no. 7) 1967, p. 243, no. 43.

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