Lot 2908, An archaic bronze ritual food vessel, liding, Late Shang – Early Western Zhou dynasty. Estimate 2,200,000 — 2,800,000 HKD (254,749 - 324,226 EUR). Photo Sotheby's.

the deep bowl divided into three lobes resting on straight legs, the everted rim set with a pair of plain loop handles, each lobe finely cast with a taotie mask with protruding eyes and horns, flanked by descending serpentine animals to the sides, all against a dense leiwen ground, the bronze patinated to a pale green tone with patches of malachite encrustation, wood stand - 22.5 cm, 8 7/8  in.

Authentication: The design of such large taotie animal masks covering the globular lobed body of the vessel with its protruding eyes, raised curled horns and curved fangs flanked by descending kui dragons, is a motif most frequently found in the Shang/Western Zhou transitional period. Excavations in 1984 of Tomb M1713 in Anyang, Henan, revealed  a liding of similar design, the Ya Yu Ding (84AGM1713:27), recorded in the Institute of Archaeology CASS, Yinxu xin chu tu qing tong qi [Ritual bronzes recently excavated in Yinxu], Beijing, 2008, no. 196, pp. 366-7. Compare an example with a similar design but slightly smaller in size in the Arthur Sackler collection, illustrated by Robert W. Bagley, Shang Ritual Bronzes from the Arthur M. Sackler Collections, Washington D.C., 1987, pp. 486-9, cat. no. 93; another illustrated in Gustav Ecke, Frühe Chinesische Bronzen aus der Sammlung Oskar Trautmann, 1939, no. VI.; and one formerly in the collection of Professor Alfred Salmony, sold in our New York rooms, 17th/18th September 2013, lot 18.

Provenance: An old Japanese collection. 

Sotheby's. Literati / Curiosity II, Hong Kong, 05 Apr 2016, 10:15 AM