J.J. Lally & Co., Oriental Art / New York City, New York
MenuPast Exhibition
Bronze and Gold in Ancient China
March 24 - April 12, 2003
9.
A BRONZE VASE WITH ENGRAVED DECORATION
Han Dynasty, 1st Century B.C. - 1st Century A.D.
of Southern type, the tall-necked vase decorated with numerous fantastic animals, wild beasts and birds densely packed into four decorative friezes all with broad outlines deeply carved and with energetically engraved striations filling the surface, the steeply rounded sides of the vessel carved with the main frieze of birds, bears, deer, a tortoise, dragons and winged beasts in a dense landscape of stylized cliffs and undulating mountain peaks, above chevron pattern and lozenge-motif bands around the high flared foot and below a pair of plain concave bands around the shoulder, surmounted by a collar of running long-tailed beasts, the straight slender neck with a pair of wide bands filled with two-headed serpents, each serpent surrounded by a radiating aura in a repeating pattern, interspersed with fantastic beasts and birds, framed by diamond-lozenge and chevron-motif borders, the narrow mouth with a thick rolled lip, the surface with smooth dark gray patination all over, mottled with areas of pale green and reddish cuprite corrosion from burial.
Height 11 1⁄2 inches (29.2 cm)
A vase of similar form with engraved decoration in the same distinctive style is illustrated by Fontein and Wu in Unearthing China's Past, Boston, 1973, p.119, no. 52, with a detailed discussion of this rare group of Han bronzes including illustrations of related vessels in museum collections and references to Chinese excavation reports documenting the Southern provenance of the group on pages 118-124.
9.
A BRONZE VASE WITH ENGRAVED DECORATION
Han Dynasty, 1st Century B.C. - 1st Century A.D.
Height 11 1⁄2 inches (29.2 cm)