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chinese art:metalwork |
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AN ARCHAISTIC BRONZE FOOD VESSEL, GUI Qing Dynasty (1644 - 1912) The vessel is nearly identical to those made during the early Western Zhou dynasty in the 11th/10th century BC. It is flanked with two handles emerging from the mouth of a horned beast and finishing as an elephant's head. The body is decorated on each side with a very large taotie mask, bordered on the top and bottom with a pair of confronting birds. The interior bears a long inscription with 22 archaic characters. The hollowed base is decorated with the same 'lattice' pattern found on bronze of the Shang and Zhou period. Height 6 1/2 in. (16.4 cm.)maximum width 11 3/4 in. (29.7 cm.) Compare with similar archaic examples in the National Palace Museum published in Catalogue to the Special Exhibition of Grain Vessels of the Shang and Zhou Dynasties, Taipei, 1985, cat. no. 37 and another exhibited in the Los Angeles County Museum in 1976 and illustrated in George Kuwayama, Ancient Ritual Bronzes of China, Los Angeles, 1976, cat. no. 26. Compare also with a very similar vessel of the same size and dated to the late Shang/early Zhou dynasty exhibited and illustrated in J. J. Lally & Co., Archaic Chinese Bronzes, Jades and Works of Art, June 1 to 25 1994, New York, cat. no. 53. For more reading on archaistic bronzes, see Rose Kerr, Late Chinese Bronzes, Victoria & Albert Museum (Far Eastern Series), 1990. Ref. CB259 SOLD
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