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
14.
YOU 卣
Shang Dynasty, 11th Century B.C.
of heavily cast deep form and oval section, the swelling body decorated with a wide frieze of crested birds in pairs confronted on four thick notched and toothed flanges which rise from the base onto the cover dividing the vessel into quarters, the recessed sides of the tall foot decorated with taotie formed by pairs of confronted dragons, and the neck decorated with pairs of kui dragons with short overlapping and interlocking hooked tails above a belt of rounded vertical ribs on the steep shoulder, the cover cast with a band of long-tailed birds below a sharp projecting cornice interrupted by two thick hooks of rounded beak shape each decorated with a finely detailed cicada, the domed crown of the cover cast with a band of slender birds with long curled tails beneath a collar of wedge-shaped ribs radiating from the bud-form finial raised on a thick stem and cast with six descending cicadas, the relief decoration on the vessel and cover all reserved on a very finely cast leiwen spiral ground, the swing handle decorated with eight elaborately drawn cicadas in relief surrounded by dense leiwen, curving down to large monster-head terminals over rings cast onto loops centered on the long sides of the dragon frieze below the mouth rim, the surface with encrusted green malachite corrosion all over, a few spots of reddish cuprite and widely scattered pseudomorphs of textile wrapping, with an inscription of ten characters cast inside the base of the vessel, repeated inside the cover.
Height 16 inches (40.5 cm)
The inscription may be read as: □ 為易(賜)貝用作父乙尊彝, which may be translated as: “□Wei was presented with a monetary reward [which he] used to make this precious vessel for Fu Yi ”
Provenance
Eskenazi Ltd., Ancient Chinese Bronzes and Sculpture, London, 2005, pp. 10–13, no. 1
A smaller you of very similar form, similarly decorated with a principal frieze of birds and registers of dragons, birds and ribs, excavated in 1990 at Anyang and now in the Archaeology Department at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, is illustrated in Zhongguo qingtongqi quanji (Compendium of Chinese Bronzes), Vol. 3, Shang III, Beijing, 1997, pp. 121–122, described on p. 55. The same you is illustrated in Ritual Bronzes Recently Excavated at Yinxu, Kunming, 2008, pp. 257–259. Another similarly decorated you of very similar form excavated in 1970 at Ningxianghuangcai, Hunan province and now in the Hunan Provincial Museum is illustrated in Zhongguo qingtongqi quanji (Compendium of Chinese Bronzes), Vol. 4, Shang IV, Beijing, 1998, pp. 156–158, described on p. 44.
Several you of closely related form and design are in American museums, including the two you in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, from the collection of Viceroy Duan Fang, reported to have been found at Baoji, Shaanxi province in 1901, illustrated in The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, Vol. XXXII, No. 2, New York, 1973–74, figs. 16 and 17, and on the cover. Compare also the you in the Minneapolis Institute of Arts illustrated by Karlgren, A Catalogue of the Chinese Bronzes in the Alfred F. Pillsbury Collection, Minneapolis, 1952, pp. 50–52, pls. 22–23, no. 16; and in the Worcester Art Museum, illustrated by Ackerman, Ritual Bronzes of Ancient China, New York, 1945, pl. 8, and published again by Chase, Ancient Chinese Bronze Art, China Institute, New York, 1991, pp. 52–53, no. 14.
商 父乙卣 高 40.5 厘米
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