AN EXTREMELY RARE AND IMPORTANT ARCHAIC BRONZE RITUAL WINE VESSEL AND COVER (YOU) SHANG DYNASTY, YINXU PERIOD |

of oval section, the compressed pear-shaped body well-cast in low relief with a pair of taotie masks divided by four vertical notched flanges against a leiwen ground, the hollow pedestal foot with confronting dragons and short flanges, the neck with a continuous frieze of kuilong, centered on each side with an animal mask in relief, the shoulder set with two loops attached to an arched swing handle decorated with further dragons issuing from animal-mask terminals on either end, the domed cover similarly cast with taotie masks separated by notched flanges, all below a cap finial formed by four abstract cicadas, the surface with areas of malachite encrustation (2)

Collection of Huang Jun (1880-1952), Beijing.
Collection of Dr. A.F. Philips (1874-1951).
Sotheby's London, 30th March 1978, lot 13.
Collection of J.T. Tai (1910-1992), New York.
Collection of Wahl-Rostagni, Rome.
French Private Collection.

Archaic Chinese Bronzes from Shang and Zhou Dynasties, Oriental Bronzes Ltd., London, 1989, cat. no. 3.

Huang Jun, Yezhong pianyu erji [Feathers from Yezhong series II], vol. 1, Beijing, 1937, p. 17.
Christian Deydier, Les Bronzes Archaïques Chinois. Archaic Chinese Bronzes I Xia Shang, Paris, 1995, col. pl. 107.
Christian Deydier, Understanding Ancient Chinese Bronzes. Their Importance in Chinese Culture, Their Shapes, Functions and Motifs, Paris, 2015, p. 83.

The bronze vessel and cover in very good general condition, the cover and handle all original with no replaced elements. One side of the body in very good condition. The other side with a horizontal crack running along the thin plain band at the neck, measuring approximately 11.5cm, as visible in the principal catalogue image. The same side with an slightly circular depression the lower left body and an original casting patch to the upper right of the left eye with an possibly associated circular repaired hole, two other small chaplets, and an original casting patch to the lower right body. Characteristic wear all over, the bronze with a rich silvery green patina with patches of malachite encrustation. X-rays available upon request.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

Classic, yet Individual: A Remarkable Archaic Bronze YouThis finely and lavishly decorated bronze wine vessel is both in shape and decoration a perfect representative of the high and , mature ‘Anyang’ style that flourished from the mid-Shang period (c. 1600 – c. 1046 BC) in the then-capital of Yinxu in present-day Henan province. Although it displays the classic proportions of you of that period and exhibits the archetypal taotie design, it is very rare in its combination of these formal and decorative features, and it is difficult to find close counterparts. The remarkable condition of the piece further adds to its importance in the surviving canon.

You are believed to have been used as wine containers at ancestral rituals. The term, however, can be matched with this shape only since it was used for vessels of this form in the Northern Song (960-1127) catalogue Kaogutu (‘Illustrated antiques’), where eight you are illustrated and described. Wang Tao writes (Chinese Bronzes from the Meiyintang Collection, London, 2009, p. 62) that ‘in Shang oracle bone inscriptions and Western Zhou bronze inscriptions, we read that a vessel named you was employed as a bucket for aromatic wine used for sacrifice’. The character does, however, not occur in inscriptions on the archaic bronze vessels themselves, which may originally have been named differently.  

The shape was in use since the later Erligang period (c. 1600 – c. 1400 BC) and can vary a lot, being much taller, cylindrical, square, bearing a long spout, or shaped like an animal with four legs. According to Robert W. Bagley (Shang Ritual Bronzes in the Arthur M. Sackler Collections, Washington, D.C., 1987, p. 374), the wine vessels found in the tomb of Fu Hao, consort of King Wu Ding, the only undisturbed royal Shang tomb at Anyang so far, which has been variously dated from 1250 to c. 1200 BC, ‘do not include oval-bodied you, suggesting that the type did not appear until after the first century of the Anyang period’.

The basic form of our vessel, of pointed oval section, which became popular in the 12th and early 11th centuries BC, was modified again in the Western Zhou period (c. 1046 – 771 BC), when its profile became more compact and its oval section more squared. Yet this Shang form itself could be adjusted in so many ways that the variety of forms is breath-taking: contemporary examples can differ in proportion, section and profile, the alignment and shape of the handle, the shape of the knob, and the existence and shape of flanges. In addition, there were of course endless possibilities how to decorate such vessels. Two basic types seem, however, to be prevalent, one with overall decoration, but differing from our you in many respects; the other only partly decorated, but otherwise more closely related.

You with overall decoration are usually of broader, more exaggerated pear shape, the designs executed in higher relief, paired with more prominent flanges and wing-like hooks on either side of the cover. The handle is usually cast with animal heads in the round that hide the loops for attachment, and it may even be attached the opposite way, running from front to back. You of this type from the Sackler collection are illustrated in Bagley, op.cit., pls 64 and 65, with excavated and heirloom counterparts, figs. 64.2, 64.3, 64.4 and 64.6.

The more ovoid form of the present you and its linear decoration are closer to late Shang examples that are lacking the flanges and are decorated only with narrow bands of design around cover, shoulder and foot, leaving the main part of the body plain. On such you, the handle tends to have simple, openly visible loops without animal masks, seemingly similar to the present piece, although our you does bear masks on either side, albeit in miniature. Bagley also illustrates and discusses a range of such more sparsely decorated you of the late Shang period from the Sackler collection, op.cit., pls 68-70, and comparisons, mostly excavated, figs 68.5, 70.2, 70.3, 71.2 and 71.3.

The present you manifests a very rare combination of form and design. A comparable you that — like the present piece — combines features of both types, is illustrated in Higuchi Takayasu & Hayashi Minao, Fugendō Sakamoto Gorō Chūgoku seidōki seishō/Ancient Chinese Bronzes in the Sakamoto Collection, Tokyo, 2002, pl. 73 (fig. 1): it is similar in shape, has similar flanges and similar overall linear decoration, but a band of triangles around the cover and its handle is formed like twisted rope.

Another related you, which is lacking its handle, is in the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, illustrated in Haiwai yizhen: Tongqi, xu/Chinese Art in Overseas Collections: Bronze [sic] II, Taipei, 1988, p. 52 (fig. 2): it also shows similar proportions and similarly shaped flanges with a central hook, and is very similarly decorated but in slight relief, again with triangles replacing the animal design around the cover. This you is also illustrated in Bagley, p. 398, fig. 70.1, as comparison to the sparsely decorated variant, which he suggests must derive from this ‘fully decorated parent type’.

Two further you may be mentioned as comparisons, with similar overall decoration in low relief on a plain ground, without leiwen background, one with rope-twist handle, from Shandong,  illustrated in Jessica Rawson, Western Zhou Ritual Bronzes from the Arthur M. Sackler Collections, Washington, D.C., 1990, p. 505, fig. 70.3, but attributed to the Shang dynasty; the other from the collection Earl Morse, almost identical to the last, but having lost its handle, sold in our London rooms, 14th November 1972, lot 227.

The large-scale taotie design on the present bronze displays the fully developed style of this motif, with C-shaped horns, pointed ears, and inward curved fangs. It extends into a body on either side of the central flange, so that it can be interpreted either as a single mask facing the viewer or as two kui dragons in profile, facing each other. Vadime Elisseeff, who discusses the development of this design in ‘A Lei in the Musée Cernuschi Collection’, Orientations, August 1992, p. 48, illustrates a very similar taotie motif, but with outward bent fangs. Related taotie masks as well as similar dragon motifs as seen on the shoulder and cover of our you, with open jaws and with down-pointing snouts, can already be seen on bronzes from the tomb of Fu Hao, see Yinxu Fu Hao mu/Tomb of Lady Hao at Yinxu in Anyang, Beijing, 1980, passim, both executed in this distinctive flat linear style and with design elements raised in relief an unusual technique in common with our you. A you of more slender form but closely related design and structure excavated from tomb 1022 at Xibeigang, Anyang, and now in the collection of the Insitute of History and Philology, Academia Sinica and dated to the first half of the Yinxu period is illustrated in King Wu Ding and Lady Hao, Art and Culture of the Late Shang Dynasty, National Palace Museum, Taipei, 2013, pl. III-4, p. 130. A ding tripod vessel with similar taotie and dragon designs in linear relief is illustrated in Christian Deydier, Les Bronzes Archaiques Chinois, op.cit., p. 85, and another similar taotie mask can be seen on a 12^th century lei from the Sackler collection, Bagley, op.cit., pl. 8.

The distinguished provenance of the present you can be traced back into the first half of the last century. Huang Jun (1880-1952) was a Beijing art dealer, who in the 1930s and ‘40s published several bronze catalogues.

Dr. Anton F. Philips (1874-1951) was co-founder of the Philips Group of companies that started in Eindhoven in The Netherlands as a light bulb factory. An observatory in his home town, which he donated, is still named after him, the Dr. A.F. Philips Sterrenwacht. The important collection of archaic Chinese bronzes and other works of art that he had assembled, was sold in our London rooms in 1978.

Tai Jun Tse (J.T. Tai, 1910-1992) was one of the major Chinese art dealers of the 20th century, who started working at his uncle’s antiques shop in Wuxi, Jiangsu province, from around the late 1920s, opened his own shop in Shanghai in the 1930s and moved to New York in 1950 to open a gallery there. For decades he remained one of the major suppliers of Americas great collectors, among them Avery Brundage and Arthur M. Sackler.