Important Chinese Art

Important Chinese Art

View full screen - View 1 of Lot 236. A rare and impressive inscribed archaic bronze ritual wine vessel (Zun), Early Western Zhou dynasty | 西周初 虎尊.

A rare and impressive inscribed archaic bronze ritual wine vessel (Zun), Early Western Zhou dynasty | 西周初 虎尊

Auction Closed

March 23, 06:46 PM GMT

Estimate

400,000 - 600,000 USD

Lot Details

Description

A rare and impressive inscribed archaic bronze ritual wine vessel (Zun)

Early Western Zhou dynasty

西周初 虎尊


cast to the interior with an eighteen-character inscription reading Hu zuo fuyi baozunyi qi zizi sunsun wannian yongbaoyong X, ending with a clan pictogram

銘文:

虎作父乙寶尊彝 其子子孫孫萬年永寶用


Height 10⅞ in., 27.5 cm

Collection of Z.I. Yang, until 1951.

C.T. Loo, New York.

Frank Caro, successor to C.T. Loo, New York, 1954.

Collection of Mr. John Frederick Lewis Jr. (1899-1965) and Mrs. Ada Haeseler Lewis (1900-1967).

Philadelphia Private Collection.

Sotheby's New York, 14th September 2011, lot 298.


楊氏收藏,至1951年

盧芹齋,紐約

弗蘭克•卡羅(盧芹齋繼任人),紐約,1954年

John Frederick Lewis Jr. (1899-1965) 及 Ada Haeseler Lewis (1900-1967) 伉儷收藏

費城私人收藏

紐約蘇富比2011年9月14日,編號298

Bernhard Karlgren, 'Marginalia on some Bronze Albums. II', Bulletin of the Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities, no. 32, Stockholm, 1960, pl. 10b.

Wu Zhenfeng, Shangzhou qingtongqi mingwen ji tuxiang jicheng [Compendium of inscriptions and images of bronzes from the Shang and Zhou dynasties], vol. 21, Shanghai, 2012, no. 11773.


高本漢,〈Marginalia on some Bronze Albums. II〉,《Bulletin of the Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities》,編號32,斯德哥爾摩,1960年,圖版10b

吳鎮烽,《商周青銅器銘文暨圖像集成》,卷21,上海,2012年,編號11773

2200 Years of Chinese Sculpture from Shang to Sung, Fort Worth Art Center (now the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth) and Houston Museum of Fine Arts, Fort Worth and Houston, 1954, cat. no. 8.


《2200 Years of Chinese Sculpture from Shang to Sung》,沃斯堡藝術中心(今為沃斯堡現代藝術博物館)及休斯頓美術館,沃斯堡及休斯頓,1954年,編號8

Notable for its long inscription, the present zun is a rare and outstanding example of its type. The inscription reads ‘Hu made this precious vessel for Father Yi, to be treasured for ten thousand years, and for the eternal use of his sons and grandsons’, with a clan symbol at the end. In the Chinese tradition, archaic bronzes are often named after their owners. The owner of this vessel is named Hu 虎 (tiger). This bronze, therefore, is called Hu zun or ‘Tiger’ zun.


Hu came from a mysterious clan, which appears to have been active during the late Shang to early Western Zhou dynasty. Surviving vessels from this family are extremely rare. Only one other example is recorded, also a bronze zun, formerly in the collection of Wang Yirong (1845-1900), Liu E (1857-1909), and Liu Tizhi (1879-1962), attributed to the late Shang or early Western Zhou dynasty. The vessel is known only from its line drawing and the rubbing of its inscription, published in Wu Zhenfeng, Shangzhou qingtongqi mingwen ji tuxiang jicheng [Compendium of inscriptions and images of bronzes from the Shang and Zhou dynasties], vol. 20, Shanghai, 2012, no. 11447.


While the identity of Hu is yet to be determined, a detailed discussion on the dating of this vessel may provide more insight. The form of the present zun, often referred as gu xing zun (gu-shaped zun), began to gain popularity during the later stage of Yinxu (see Zhu Fenghan, Zhongguo qingtongqi zonglun / A Comprehensive Survey of Chinese Bronzes, vol. II, Shanghai, 2009, p. 989). Our vessel, however, is clearly not a late Shang creation. The beast masks decorating the center of the present zun are flanked by pairs of bird motifs, which is a typical characteristic of Western Zhou design, as noted by Wang Shimin, Chen Gongrou, and Zhang Changshou, Xizhou qingtongqi fenqi duandai yanjiu / A Study of the Periodization and Dating of Western Zhou Bronzes, Beijing, 1999, p. 244.


Gu xing zun continued to be made during the Western Zhou dynasty. Among the archeological examples from this period, a closely related zun of the same size and with a very similar decoration and form as the present vessel, is recorded to have been excavated in Yuntang village, Fufeng county, Shaanxi province, in 1976, now in the Zhouyuan Museum, Baoji, published in Li Boqian, ed., Zhongguo chutu qingtongqi quanji / The Complete Collection of Bronzes Unearthed in China, vol. 16, Beijing, 2018, pl. 281. This vessel was discussed by Zhu Fenghan in his book as a new style that emerged during the later period of King Zhou Kang and King Zhou Zhao, for whom reign dates of c. 1020 - c. 996 BC and c. 995 - c. 977 BC, respectively, have been proposed (see Zhu Fenghan, op. cit., pp 1269 and 1271). The popularity of this new style declined in the proceeding reigns. By the reigns of the King Zhou Mu (proposed reign dates c. 976 – c. 922 BC) and the King Zhou Gong (proposed reign dates c. 922 – c. 900 BC), the most popular form of zun, as suggested by Zhu Fenghan, was the type with a pear-shaped body (see op. cit., p. 1288), such as the Feng zun, excavated in Zhuangbai village, Fufeng county, Shaanxi province, and illustrated in Li Boqian, op. cit., pl. 451. Based on the aforementioned examples, the present zun is more likely from the same period as the one discovered in the Yuntang village, which would suggest the owner of our vessel, Hu, may have lived between the late King Zhou Kang and King Zhou Zhao period.


As in many cultures, the tiger in the Chinese tradition represents power and strength. In ancient China, the character hu was used to describe brave military officials (see Zhong Lin, Jinwen jiexi dazidian [Explanatory dictionary of archaic bronze inscriptions], Xi’an, 2017, p. 602). One of the most powerful vassal states of the Western Zhou dynasty, the Guo state 虢國, which produced generations of important military generals to protect and defend the Zhou empire, is believed to revere the tiger (see Liang Ningsen and Zheng Jianying, Guo guo yanjiu [Study of the Guo state], Zhengzhou, 2007, pp 26 and 27). During the mid-Western Zhou dynasty, another Hu, recorded from the inscriptions of the Hu gui cover 虎簋蓋 and Shi Hu gui 師虎簋, is known to have served as the shi 師 of the Zhou court (Wu Zhenfeng, Jinwen renming huibian [Compilation of the names from bronze inscriptions], Beijing, 2006, pp 200 and 201). Shi was a top official title during the Zhou dynasty with important military responsibilities (see Li Xueqin, ‘Xi Zhou zhongqi qingtong qi de zhongyao biaochi [Important comparable examples of Western Zhou bronzes]’, Zhongguo Lishi Bowuguan guankan [Journal of the History Museum of China], Beijing, 1979, p. 31). Based on the above evidence, it is possible that Hu, the owner of the present vessel, was someone with a prominent military association during his period.


The present vessel is cast with an eighteen-character inscription, which is very rare for zun of this type. A similar bronze zun of a smaller size in the Shanghai Museum, Shanghai, inscribed with eleven characters, is known, published in Wu Zhenfeng, op. cit., vol. 21, 2012, no. 11734. Most zun of this type have much shorter inscriptions, usually only a few characters. For examples, see a very similar one with three characters, excavated in Huangshan city, Anhui province, published in Li Boqian, op. cit., vol. 8, pl. 70; another, inscribed with two characters, Fu Wu, in the Sen-oku Hakukokan Museum, Kyoto, illustrated in Quanwu toushang [In-depth appreciation for the bronzes in the Sen-oku Hakukokan Museum], Beijing, 2015, p. 198, pl. 65; and a third, cast with a three-character inscription, in the Shanghai Museum, Shanghai, illustrated in Chen Peifen, Xia Shang Zhou qingtongqi yanjiu [Study of archaic bronzes from Shang, Shang and Zhou dynasties], Xizhou vol. 1, Shanghai, 2004, p. 257.