Beschreibung:

A fine Chinese bronze ritual wine vessel and cover, Ju You, Late Shang Dynasty, 12th-11th century BC, the broad pear-shaped body is raised on a splayed foot and the shoulder and cover with lozenge leiwen bordered by circles and centred on each side with an animal-mask, the twisted-rope, swing handle is joined at the shoulder by two simple loops and the domed cover is surmounted by an ovoid finial, the exterior and interior surfaces are covered with a mottled encrustation of bright malachite and azurite, and the interior base and inner cover are both cast with the clan mark, approximately 31cm high x approximately 23cm wide x approximately 16cm deepProvenance: Sotheby's, London, November 18th, 1998, lot 873 where purchased by the current owner and recently removed form a country house in West BerkshireThe clan mark, reading '丙' [bing], was associated with the Bing clan residing in todays Shanxi Province. A bronze jue vessel, late Shang dynasty, with similar clan symbol, bing, was excavated in 1953, Anyang, Henan Province, tomb no.304, and is now in the National Museum of China, Beijing; see Zhongguo qing tong qitu ji, Beijing, 2005, p.125. Further examples can be found in other important museum collections; see R. Bagley, Shang Ritual Bronzes in the Arthur M. Sackler Collections, Cambridge, Mass., 1987, pp.194-195; in the collection of the British Museum, see W. Watson Ancient Chinese Bronzes, London, 1977, pl.10b; and in the Shanghai Museum, see Shanghai Museum: Ancient Chinese Bronze Gallery, Shanghai, p.9. 晚商 青铜雷纹提梁"丙"卣「丙」金文铸款拍品来源：西伯克郡私人收藏，现藏家于1998年11月18日购自伦敦苏富比