Lot 330. Property from the Lee Pak Kwai Collection. An archaic bronze 'ya zhou' ritual vessel, gu, Shang Dynasty (1600 - 1046 BC); 26 cm high (2).. Sold for HK$230,400 (Est: HK$180 000 - $280 000) © Bonhams 2001-2025
 

The flaring trumpet neck cast with four blades, the central section and spreading foot cast with taotie masks decorated with leiwen and bisected by vertical hooked flanges, the top of the foot encircled by a pair of bow-string bands interrupted by a cruciform opening, the interior of the foot cast with two pictograms reading ya zhou (deputy officer of boats), fitted box.

Provenance: An old Japanese private collection, formed prior to World War II
Sotheby's New York, 20 March 2012, lot 14

Note: Several bronzes cast with the inscription ya zhou are known. A late Shang dynasty bronze jue with the same inscription, formerly in the collection of A.E.K. and James Cull, is included in Ch'en Meng-Chia, Chinese Bronzes in Foreign Collections, Peiping, 1946, no. 31, and its two-character mark published in Luo Zhenyu, Sandai jijin wencun (Surviving writings from the Xia, Shang, and Zhou dynasties), Beijing, 1937, vol. 15, no. 33.3; and Yan Yiping, ed., Jinwen zongji (Corpus of bronze inscriptions), Taipei, 1983, no. 3591. Another bronze jue is published by Jessica Rawson, The Bella and P.P. Chiu Collection of Ancient Chinese Bronzes, Hong Kong, 1988, no. 11. A further example, a ritual wine vessel and cover, fangyi, is included in William Waston, Ancient Chinese Bronzes, London, 1962, no. 17.

Compare also a bronze tripod vessel bearing also an inscription of ya zhou, albeit in a slight variation, purchased from C.T. Loo in 1946 and now in the collection of Freer Gallery of Art, accession no. F1946.31. Decorated with zoomorphic masks and cicada motifs, the late Shang vessel is probably attributable to Anyang, Henan.