Various Owners
An archaic bronze hu vessel
Warring States period
Of Pear shaped form tapering to a flared slender neck with four small loose ring-handle pendants issuing from bird mask loops, elaborately cast with three broad bands of confronting feline beasts featuring curling horns and small panels of scale patterns on their flanks in profile, each biting onto the tail of a twin bodied serpent in its open jaws, the uppermost frieze flanked by a pair of archaistic bird heads with symmetrical wings and raised bosses, issuing rectangular ring handles finely incised with stylized beaked dragons and slanted scroll motifs, further decorated with shield shaped panels filled with pairs of stylised dragons encircling the lower body above the rope-twist ring foot, the doomed cover further surmounted by three rudimentary bird heads loops against a background of dragon scroll bands filled with leiwen, the surface with a scattered patina of dark green and reddish brown.
44.8cm high.
Of Pear shaped form tapering to a flared slender neck with four small loose ring-handle pendants issuing from bird mask loops, elaborately cast with three broad bands of confronting feline beasts featuring curling horns and small panels of scale patterns on their flanks in profile, each biting onto the tail of a twin bodied serpent in its open jaws, the uppermost frieze flanked by a pair of archaistic bird heads with symmetrical wings and raised bosses, issuing rectangular ring handles finely incised with stylized beaked dragons and slanted scroll motifs, further decorated with shield shaped panels filled with pairs of stylised dragons encircling the lower body above the rope-twist ring foot, the doomed cover further surmounted by three rudimentary bird heads loops against a background of dragon scroll bands filled with leiwen, the surface with a scattered patina of dark green and reddish brown.
44.8cm high.
Sold for
HK$ 740,000
inc. premium
Footnotes
- Provenance 來源:
J.J. Lally & Co, New York
While the rectangular handles of the present lot are comparatively rarer than the usual ring handles found on many bronze hu dated to the Warring states period, the distinctive decorative motif combining birds, serpents and feline beasts is a hallmark found on many bronzes and lacquer ware of the Eastern Zhou period from the Chu culture, as shown from the many samples excavated from the tombs of Marquis of Zeng at Suizhou, Hubei, illustrated in the excavation report published by the Hubei Provincial Museum, Zheng Hou Yi mu, vol.2, Beijing, 1989. Compare with a very similar hu with four taotie masks and a pair of large oval handles excavated from a Chu tomb in Jiangling, Hebei province, illustrated in M.Hayashi, Shunju Sengoku jidai seikoki no kenkyu, vol III, p.113, no. 146.
戰國 虎噬蛇紋方耳壺
Category: Asian Art / Chinese Works of Art
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