Lot 228. From the Alan and Simone Hartman collection. A rare and important bronze figure of a tiger, Eastern Zhou Dynasty, 5th to 3rd century BC; 17cm length. Sold for US$432,300. © Bonhams 2001-2024

Finely cast in a powerful sinuous crouching pose, looking up to its right with well-defined cheekbones and arched brows above large eyes, the ears pressed back and the tail curling upwards to the rump, the body with intaglio double scrolled lines and lozenges which continue to the chest, the bronze with malachite encrustations throughout.

Provenance: Property of a Gentleman
Sotheby's London, 19 June 1984, lot 9, reputedly from Jincun near Luoyang, Henan Province
The Oeder Collection
Sotheby's New York, 22 March 2000, lot 66.

Exhibited: Ostasiatische Kunst und Chinoiserie, Cologne, 1953
Weltkunst aus Privatbesitz, Kunsthalle, Cologne, 1968, no. 25.

Published: Daisy Lion-Goldschmidt and Jean-Claude Moreau-Gobard, Chinese Art: Bronze, Jade, Sculpture, Ceramics, New York, 1980, pl. 43
Willow Hai Chang, 'The Scope of Collections is as Broad as the Universe, Side by Side is the Couple Happily Flying in the Sky. A Record of Mr. & Mrs. Hartman at New York and their Treasures of Chinese Works of Art', Art of China, No. 95, July 1993, p. 46, no. 26.

Note: A bronze tiger of the same model from the Hellstrom Collection, is illustrated in the Album recording the Karlbeck Syndicate of 1931-32 compiled by the Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities, Stockholm, December 1933, no. 196, where Karlbeck notes that "It was found at Chintsun, Loyang, together with two other tigers. They probably embellished the cover to a tripod. The legs of this tripod are said to have been acquired by the Toronto Museum. A pair of square lacquer vases and belthooks inlaid with gold and silver are also supposed to have been found with the tigers". The Hellstrom figure, now in the Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities, Stockholm, is also illustrated and discussed in 'The Exhibition of Early Chinese Bronzes', B.M.F.E.A Stockholm, 1933, pl. XXXIV, and illustrated by William Watson, Ancient Chinese Bronzes, London, 1962, pl. 89a. The third figure from the Ernest Erikson Collection (accession number 1985.214.10) is now to be found in the Metropolitan Museum of Art New York and is illustrated by Maxwell K. Hearn, Ancient Chinese Art, New York, 1987, no. 13.

Related reclining bronze animal figures of much smaller size can be seen on bronze ding of the late Spring and Autumn period, for an example with tigers and cows, see Zhongguo Qingtongqi Quanji, vol. 8, Beijing, 1995, pls. 25-27.

Bronze animals of this type also functioned as the support for bronze vessels. See a cylindrical vessel with three rhino-like beast support, from the Pingshan Sanji Gongshe, M6, in Hebei province, illustrated by Jenny So in Eastern Zhou Ritual Bronzes from the Arthur M. Sackler Collections, Volume III, Smithsonian Institution, Washington D.C., 1995, p. 66, fig. 120, described as late 4th century BC.

Lot 52. From the Alan and Simone Hartman collection. Two archaic bronze ritual wine vessels, gu and jue, Shang Dynasty, Anyang phase, 12th-11th century BC; 30.5cm high of gu; 20.3cm width of jue (2). Sold for US$44,800. © Bonhams 2001-2024

Comprising a beaker vase with wide trumpet mouth, the short body and flaring foot each divided by four flanges and finely decorated with two sets of taotie masks, the waist with two bowstrings above a frieze of 'cicada' pattern, the dark grey bronze with green malachite encrustation in areas; together with a libation cup support by three splayed blade-shaped legs, finely modeled with a pair of posts with 'mushroom' caps centered between the spout and the pointed tail, the cylindrical body with rounded base decorated with a frieze of taotie masks, a pictogram cast to one side, below the simple bovine head loop handle, the smooth dark-grey metal with green malachite encrustations throughout.

Note: The pictogram on the bronze jue may be read as yu 聿, possibly a clan sign.

Bronze gu and jue are the two iconic forms amongst Shang ritual wine vessels. As Rawson noted in The British Museum Book of Chinese Art, London, 1992, "While almost all later bronze vessel shapes were based on Neolithic ceramics, the source of the earliest type of all, the jue, is something of a mystery." Bronze gu and jue vessels were almost always part of the set, while other forms of ritual vessels may be added or distracted according to hierarchy. Rawson further illustrates a gu and a jue from the early Shang period in the book, op. cit., p. 57, pl. 27 as an example.

The bronze gu and jue in the present lot belong to the later period of the Shang. Compare, for example, the similar bronze gu unearthed in 1957 from Lanjiagou, Shilou, Shanxi province and now in the collection of the Shanxi Provincial Museum, illustrated in Compendium of Chinese Bronze, Volume IV, Shang (4), Dongguan, 1998, p. 65, no. 67. Compare the similar bronze jue with a three-character inscription to one side of the body underneath the handle, unearthed in 1970 from M1080, Anyang, Henan province, illustrated in Compendium of Chinese Bronze, Volume III, Shang (3), p. 17, no. 17.

Lot 33. From the Alan and Simone Hartman collection. An archaic ritual bronze tripod food vessel and cover, ding, Late Spring and Autumn-early Warring States Period, 5th century BC; 41.2cm across. Sold for US$20,480. © Bonhams 2001-2024

Handsomely modeled and finely decorated with horizontal bands of entwined dragons in low relief, the body divided by a raised rope-twist line at waist, a pair of 'U'-shaped handle raised from the shoulder, the shallow domed cover decorated with concentric bands of the same design with three loop ring handles on top centering a rectangular loose ring knob, all supported by three cabriole legs surmounted by taotie masks, the dark grey bronze with thin encrustations of malachite, cuprite, and earth.

Note: Compare the bronze ding with very similar decoration, in the collection of Shouyang Studio, exhibited in the Shanghai Museum and the Art Museum of Chinese University of Hong Kong, illustrated in Ancient Chinese Bronzes from the Shouyang Studio: The Katherine and George Fan Collection, Shanghai, 2008, pp. 162-164, no. 60, described as early Warring States period.

Compare also the closely related bronze ding and cover, in the collection of the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, illustrated by Lefebvre d'Argencé, Bronze Vessels of Ancient China in the Avery Brundage Collection, Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, San Francisco, 1977, pp. 120-121, no. LII, described as late Spring and Autumn or early Warring States period, 1st half of 5th century BC.

The discovery and excavation of the ancient foundry site in the mid-20th century at present day Houma, Shanxi province, unearthed over 1200 pieces of pottery molds and models used for bronze casting. The facility was established in early 6th century BC by the rulers of the Jin State. The wealth of patterned pottery molds and models is an unparalleled source for understanding the style and the complex casting technologies of this period, specifically in the Shanxi region.

Compare the model with cabriole legs with taotie mask similar to the present example, illustrated in Art of the Houma Foundry: Institute of Archaeology of Shanxi Province, Princeton, 1992, p. 92, no. 53, and pp. 122-123, nos. 37-44. Compare also the entwined dragon designs similar to the present example, published in the same volume, op. cit., p. 255, nos. 378 and 380, and pp. 232-233, nos. 401-405.

Lot 53. From the Alan and Simone Hartman collection. An archaic bronzevase with taotie ring-handles, hu, Late Warring States Period, 3th century BC; 35.5cm high. Sold for US$10,240. © Bonhams 2001-2024

Finely cast with three registers of geometric pattern separated by raised double-bands, the waisted neck decorated with a band of comma and scroll patterns near the shoulder, all supported by a straight foot decorated with a band of entwined double-lines, the pair of taotie masks with loose ring-handles attached to each side of the shoulder, the dark grey surface with malachite and earth encrustation in areas.

The discovery and excavation of the ancient foundry site in the mid-20th century at present day Houma, Shanxi province, unearthed over 1200 pieces of pottery molds and models used for bronze casting. The facility was established in early 6th century BC by the rulers of the Jin State. The wealth of patterned pottery molds and models is an unparalleled source for understanding the style and the complex casting technologies of this period, specifically in the Shanxi region.

Compare the taotie mask models and molds closely related to the ones on the present example, illustrated in Art of the Houma Foundry: Institute of Archaeology of Shanxi Province, Princeton, 1992, pp. 158-161, nos. 132-153.

The deep bowl and domed cover fitting together to form a spherical vessel raised on a pedestal base, the sides of the bowl finely cast with kui dragons neatly staggered in three rows, above a raised ridge and leaf-shaped pendants filled with key-fret, the cover similarly decorated with kui dragons, between a band of rope-twist at the rim and a band of triangular and fiddlehead near the top as well as on the wide-flaring crown, the flaring foot also decorated with a band of rope-twist echoing the design at the rim of the cover, a pair of ring-handles attached to the waist, the design inlaid with a black pigment or lacquer to enhance the contrast, the silvery-grey bronze with earth and malachite encrustation throughout.

Note: Bronze dou, a ritual vessel for offering condiments and grains, first appeared at the end of Shang dynasty and became part of the ritual set in the Eastern Zhou dynasty. The disc-shaped crown on the cover serves as the foot for a shallow bowl when inverting the cover.

The discovery and excavation of the ancient foundry site in the mid-20th century at present day Houma, Shanxi province, unearthed over 1200 pieces of pottery molds and models used for bronze casting. The facility was established in early 6th century BC by the rulers of the Jin State. The wealth of patterned pottery molds and models is an unparalleled source for understanding the style and the complex casting technologies of this period, specifically in the Shanxi region.

Compare the kui dragon designs similar to the present example, published in Art of the Houma Foundry: Institute of Archaeology of Shanxi Province, Princeton, 1992, p. 211, no. 322 and p. 220, no. 355 and 356.

Compare also the similar bronze dou unearthed in 1988 at Jinsheng village, Taiyuan, Shanxi province, illustrated in Compendium of Chinese Bronze, Vol. 8, Eastern Zhou II, Beijingm 1995, p. 37, pls. 40-41.

Bonhams. THE ALAN AND SIMONE HARTMAN COLLECTION THE INAUGURAL SALE, New York, 14 December 2023