J.J. Lally & Co., Oriental Art / New York City, New York
MenuPast Exhibition
Chinese Archaic Bronzes:
The Collection of Daniel Shapiro
March 14 - April 5, 2014
4.
FANGDING 方鼎
Early Western Zhou Dynasty, 11th Century B.C.
the deep bowl of rectangular section cast on each side with a taotie in layered relief with rounded oval eyes beneath flamboyant wing-shaped horns, flanked by addorsed pairs of birds with sharp talons and crested with plumes curling down their backs, below a narrow frieze of snakes with rounded bulging eyes and small pointed beaks, the decoration all in relief and with linear details in intaglio, reserved on a ground of finely cast squared spirals and framed by thick flanges each comprised of a double hook between single hooks above and below projecting from the corners, with shorter versions of the same hooked flanges bisecting each side, raised on four solid columnar legs each emerging from the open jaw of a horned taotie cast in varied relief and centered on a small hooked flange repeating the corner flange directly above, the lower legs plain except for twin raised bowstring lines, the backs of the legs cast with reinforcing strips which cross on the slightly convex underbelly of the vessel, the wide mouth with slightly canted thick rim supporting a pair of upright loop handles decorated with confronted pairs of kui dragons outlined in intaglio, the mottled patina of reddish cuprite and green malachite lightly encrusted, with an inscription of eleven characters on the interior of one side.
Width 8 1⁄4 inches (21 cm)
Height 10 3⁄4 inches (27.3 cm)
The inscription may read as: 諸(者)父作寶尊鼎其用鄉(饗)王逆(迎)復, and may be translated as: “Zhe Fu made this precious ding ritual vessel to entertain the King upon arrival and departure.”
Provenance
J. J. Lally & Co., New York, 1990
A pair of fangding of very similar form, decorated with elaborate taotie under split-bodied serpents and with very similar hooked flanges but lacking the taotie on the legs is in the Shanghai Museum, illustrated by Chen in Xia Shang Zhou qingtongqi yanjiu: Xi Zhou pian, Shang (Study of Bronzes of the Xia, Shang and Zhou Dynasties: Western Zhou, I), Shanghai, 2004, pp. 21–23, no. 201.
Another similar early Western Zhou fangding of closely related form, decorated with taotie flanked by descending kui dragons on the sides and cast with taotie above double bowstring bands on the legs but with less elaborate flanges is in the Shanghai Museum, illustrated by Chen, op. cit., pp. 2–5, no. 194.
西周早期 諸父方鼎 寬 21 厘米 高 27.3 厘米
