Lot 181. An archaic bronze axe (Yue), Shang dynasty, late Anyang period; Length 20.4 cm. Lot Sold 66,000 EUR (Estimate 30,000 - 50,000 EUR). © Sotheby's 2024

Provenance: Collection of David David-Weill (1871-1952), Inv. D.W. 2588.

Sotheby's Paris, 16th December 2015, lot 13.

Note: This piece belongs to an important group of Shang axe heads featuring taotie masks and stylised gaping mouths. An almost identical axe-head was found among hundreds of bronze weapons in the famous late Shang tomb of high-ranking imperial consort and military commander Lady Hao (ca. 1200 BC), illustrated in Yinxu Fu Hao mu, Beijing, 1980, pl. 69, fig 1, with a line drawing p. 106, fig. 66:2. Several similar examples from early European collections are known. Compare examples from the Oeder Collection and the Malmö Museum, illustrated in J. G. Andersson, 'The Goldsmith in Ancient China', in Bulletin of the Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities, no. 7, 1935, pl. I: 1 and 2; and another from the Oppenheim Collection, now in the British Museum, with stylised mouth rendered in openwork, exhibited in the International Exhibition of Chinese Art, Royal Academy of Arts, London, 1935-6, cat. no. 267. Similar axe heads were also sold at Christie’s New York, 16th September 2010, lot 836 and at Christie’s London, 7th November 2017, lot 162.

Sotheby's. Arts d'Asie, Paris, 14 June 2024