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Alain.R.Truong
15 octobre 2024

Late Shang dynasty Bronze sold at Sotheby's New York, 3 September - 18 September 2024

Late Shang dynasty Bronze sold at Sotheby's New York, 3 September - 18 September 2024
Late Shang dynasty Bronze sold at Sotheby's New York, 3 September - 18 September 2024
Late Shang dynasty Bronze sold at Sotheby's New York, 3 September - 18 September 2024
Late Shang dynasty Bronze sold at Sotheby's New York, 3 September - 18 September 2024
Late Shang dynasty Bronze sold at Sotheby's New York, 3 September - 18 September 2024
Late Shang dynasty Bronze sold at Sotheby's New York, 3 September - 18 September 2024

Lot 31. An archaic bronze ritual food vessel (Ding), Late Shang dynasty; Height 18.5 cm, wood stand (2). Lot Sold 120,000 USD (Estimate 40,000 - 60,000 USD). © Sotheby's 2024

 

Provenance: Collection of Edgar Worch (1880-1972), by 1929.
Boston Private Collection.

Literature: Osvald Sirén, Histoire des arts anciens de la Chine. Volume I: La période préhistorique, l'époque Tchéou, l'époque Tch'ou et Ts'in [History of the Ancient Art of China: Vol I: The Neolithic Period, the Zhou Period, and the Zhou and Qin Periods], Paris and Brussel, 1929, pl. 27.
Rong Geng, Shangzhou yiqi tongkao / The Bronzes of Shang and Chou, Beijing, 1941, vol. 1, p. 291 and vol. 2, pl. 34.

Note: Notable for its bowl-like body and three blade-like zoomorphic legs, the present lot represents a rare group of bronze ding. Inspired by pottery prototypes made in the Neolithic period, bronze versions of this unique form first appeared during the Erligang phase and continued to be produced through to the Shang and Western Zhou dynasty.

See a closely related ding excavated from tomb 269 east of Qijiazhuang, Hebei, in 1984 and preserved by the Anyang City Cultural Work Group, Henan Province, illustrated in Zhongguo qingtong qi quanji [Complete Collection of Chinese Bronzes], vol. II, Beijing, 1997, pl. 54. For sold examples, compare an important ding from the collection of Sir Herbert and Lady Hilda Ingram, exhibited in the Exhibition of Chinese Art Palazzo Ducale, Venice, 1954, cat. no. 37 and sold in our London rooms, 11th December 1990, lot 13; one with a similarly cast intricate central band from the Junkunc Collection was sold at Christie's New York, 21st September 1995, lot 293; and another sold at Christie's New York, 26th March 2003, lot 152.

Late Shang dynasty Bronze sold at Sotheby's New York, 3 September - 18 September 2024
Late Shang dynasty Bronze sold at Sotheby's New York, 3 September - 18 September 2024
Late Shang dynasty Bronze sold at Sotheby's New York, 3 September - 18 September 2024
Late Shang dynasty Bronze sold at Sotheby's New York, 3 September - 18 September 2024
Late Shang dynasty Bronze sold at Sotheby's New York, 3 September - 18 September 2024
Late Shang dynasty Bronze sold at Sotheby's New York, 3 September - 18 September 2024

Lot 28. An archaic bronze ritual food vessel (Gui), Late Shang dynasty; Width 26.3 cm, wood stand (2). Lot Sold 132,000 USD (Estimate 50,000 - 70,000 USD). © Sotheby's 2024

 

Provenance: Collection of Huang Jun (1880-1952).
Gump's, San Francisco.
Collection of Dr. Wallace (1880-1971) and Alice Smith, acquired prior to 1971.

Literature: Huang Jun, Yezhong pianyu sanji [Feathers from Yezhong series III], vol. 1, Beijing, 1942, p. 28.
Kenneth E. Foster, A Handbook of Ancient Chinese Bronzes, Claremont, 1949, cat. no. 17.
Bernhard Karlgren, 'Marginalia on some Bronze Albums', Bulletin of the Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities, no. 31, 1959, pl. 68a.
Chen Mengjia, Meidiguozhuyi jielue de woguo Yin Zhou tongqi jilu [Compilation of Yin and Zhou archaic bronzes in America], Beijing, 1962, no. A157.
Jessica Rawson, Western Zhou Ritual Bronzes from the Arthur M. Sackler Collections, vol. IIB, Washington D.C., 1990, p. 355, fig. 36.3.
Chen Mengjia, Meiguo suocang Zhongguo tongqi jilu [Catalogue of Chinese bronzes in American collections], vol. 1, Beijing, 2016, no. A157.
Gao Yi, 'Shangzhou qingtongqi goulian leiwen chutan [First study of the interlocked T-hook pattern on archaic bronzes of Shang and Zhou period]', Wenwu chunqiu, 2018, no. 3, p. 17 (unillustrated).

Note: Crisply cast, the present gui is notable for its rare elaborate decoration that is seldom seen on vessels of this type. The body of the vessel is casted with a leiwen ground, yet decorated without bosses in relief, and furthermore broken up by vertical flanges to the center. Exceptionally rare, the only comparable gui of this design seems to be one from the Sumitomo Collection illustrated in Bernhard Karlgren's seminal work New Studies on Chinese Bronzes, Stockholm, 1937, cat. no. 385, where he described the bronze with a 'belly covered with compound lozenges (no spikes), neck belt with beaked dragons, foot belt with turning dragons. Yin inscription.'

Compare also two gui of quite dissimilar forms but closely related leiwen designs to the belly: one with an attached square base and heavily corroded rim in the collection of the Musée Guimet, illustrated in Haiwai yizhen: Tongqi / Hai-wai Yi-chen: Chinese Art in Overseas Collections. Bronze, vol. I, Taipei, 1985, pl. 81; and another on a high splayed foot in the collection of the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, illustrated in ibid., vol. II, Taipei, 1988, pl. 12.

Late Shang dynasty Bronze sold at Sotheby's New York, 3 September - 18 September 2024
Late Shang dynasty Bronze sold at Sotheby's New York, 3 September - 18 September 2024
Late Shang dynasty Bronze sold at Sotheby's New York, 3 September - 18 September 2024
Late Shang dynasty Bronze sold at Sotheby's New York, 3 September - 18 September 2024
Late Shang dynasty Bronze sold at Sotheby's New York, 3 September - 18 September 2024

Lot 29. The Fu Ren Ding, Late Shang dynasty; Height 21 cm, wood stand (2). Lot Sold 45,600 USD (Estimate 6,000 - 8,000 USD). © Sotheby's 2024

 

inscribed to the interior below the mouth rim with two characters reading Fu Ren

Provenance: Norwegian Private Collection, acquired by the 1960s.

 

 

Late Shang dynasty Bronze sold at Sotheby's New York, 3 September - 18 September 2024
Late Shang dynasty Bronze sold at Sotheby's New York, 3 September - 18 September 2024

Lot 52. Property from The Junkunc CollectionA rare archaic bronze 'taotie and cicada' dagger axe (Ge), Late Shang dynasty; Lenght 24.1 cm. Lot Sold 5,040 USD (Estimate 4,000 - 6,000 USD). © Sotheby's 2024

 

Provenance: Collection of Stephen Junkunc, III (d. 1978).

 

Sotheby's. Chinese Art, New York, 3 September - 18 September 2024

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