A bronze bottle vase, Tang dynasty (618-907)
Lot 814. A bronze bottle vase, Tang dynasty (618-907); 7 3/4 in. (19.7 cm.) high. Estimate USD 12,000 – USD 18,000. Price realised USD 16,380. © Christie's 2023
The vase has an ovoid body surmounted by a slender neck rising to a flared rim, and has a silvery black patina with cuprite and malachite encrustation.
Provenance: J. J. Lally & Co., New York, no. 4885.
Note: Vases of this shape, known as ambrosia vases, were often shown in Buddhist images and sculpture carried by the bodhisattva Guanyin (Avalokitesvara). They were thought to contain the healing elixir that the bodhisattva could pour out for mortals seeking salvation.
A bronze vase of very similar form in the Idemitsu Museum, Tokyo, is illustrated in Ancient Chinese Arts in the Idemitsu Collection, Tokyo, 1989, no. 330, where it is dated Sui-Tang dynasty. Another similar bronze vase in the Tokyo National Museum is illustrated in Chugoku no kyodo: rokuro hiki no seidoki (Tin-Bronze of China: Bronzes of the Potter’s Wheel), Osaka, 1999, p. 32, no. 56. See, also, the Tang bronze vase of very similar form in the Minneapolis Institute of Art, illustrated by R. Jacobsen in Appreciating China – Gifts from Ruth and Bruce Dayton, Minneapolis, 2002, no. 56, no. 24.
Christie's. J. J. Lally & Co., New York, 23.03.2023