Lot 95. An archaic bronze ritual food vessel (yu), Late Shang Dynasty, 13th - 11th century BC. Diameter 11 in., 27.9 cm. Estimate 25,000 — 35,000 USD. Lot sold 410,500 USD. Photo Sotheby's

the deep U-shaped body with rounded sides rising to an everted rim, cast with a wide band of evenly spaced projecting bosses enclosed within a diamond trellis ground composed of elongated leiwen, surmounted by a narrow band of confronting dragons on a leiwen ground alternately divided by raised horned taotie and vertical notched flanges, a row of backward facing dragons on a fine leiwen ground separated by vertical notched flanges encircling the high, splayed hollow base, a single pictogram on the base of the interior, a green patina with malachite and cuprite encrustation, Japanese wood box (2).

Property from The Masaki Museum of Art.

Provenance: Japanese Collection, acquired before the 1960s.

Note: The pictogram may be translated as a personal name, according to Wang Tao and Liu Yu, A Selection of Early Chinese Bronzes with Inscriptions from  Sotheby's and Christie's Sales, Shanghai, 2005, no 151, where a similar pictogram appears on a Late Shang zun.

This type of distinctive 'diamond and boss' decoration appears to have been an innovation of the Anyang bronze foundries and seems to have been very popular in the late Shang if judged by the excavated examples of the period.  Most often seen on gui and yu, the only discernible difference of the forms being the absence of presence of handles.  For a further discussion on the decoration and form see Robert W. Bagley, Shang Ritual Bronzes in the Arthur M. Sackler Collections, Washington D.C., 1987, nos. 98 and 99, pp. 504-514. In addition there is a similar but smaller vessel along with further thoughts on the origin of the form and decoration in Wang Tao, Chinese Bronzes from the Meiyintang Collection, London, 2009, no. 96.