Beschreibung:

DescriptionAn exceptional and rare archaic bronze 'mythical beast' handleLate Shang / Early Western Zhou dynasty商末 / 西周初 青銅獸耳
metal stand (2)
Length 8⅛ in., 20.5 cmCondition reportBecause this lot was imported into the United States after September 1, 2020, it is subject to an import tariff of 7.5% of the value declared upon entry into the United States. $7,500, plus applicable sales tax will be included on your invoice unless you instruct Sotheby's to arrange shipping of the lot to a foreign address. For more information on the import tariff, please review the Symbol Key in the back of the catalogue. If you have any questions, please contact tariffs@sothebys.com。
由於本拍品在 2020年9月1日之後進口到美國，所以買家可能需就本拍品支付進口關稅，金額為拍品進口美國當時申報價值的7.5％。除非您要求蘇富比安排運送拍品到美國境外之地址，否則發票上將包括7,500美元以及相關的銷售稅。如欲查詢進口關稅的更多信息，請查閱目錄背面的附錄。 如有任何疑問，敬請聯繫tariffs@sothebys.com。
For more information on and additional videos for this lot, please contact serina.wei@sothebys.com.ProvenanceSotheby's Hong Kong, 7th April 2014, lot 3639.
香港蘇富比2014年4月7日，編號3639Catalogue noteThis extraordinary bronze sculpture is a fragmentary handle of what would originally have been a truly monumental ritual vessel, probably of gui form, undoubtedly made for a high ranking member of the aristocracy in the late Shang or early Western Zhou dynasty. The decoration is highly complex and can be interpreted in different ways, depending on the angle viewed. A feline figure is depicted perched above a bold ferocious beast mask, which appears to be 'worn' by a mythical creature with a scaly body and dragon-scroll mane, whose head is concealed under the mask and arms outstretched to hold it in place. When viewed from the bottom, the sculptural handle shows a stylized elephant with a long coiling trunk and prominent tusks, devoured from behind by the two half-human, half-feline figures. The present lot would have belonged to a vessel that must have been ostentatiously decorated and painstakingly constructed using the piece-mold technique, undoubtedly provoking awe and reverence during its time. Even as a fragment, it is an outstanding legacy of late Shang/early Western Zhou bronze craftsmanship.
Very few related bronze handles of this powerful sculptural form have been recorded. Compare a larger handle in the form of a fierce dragon from the early Western Zhou dynasty, unearthed in 1992 from Haijia village, Fufeng county, Shaanxi province, now in the Fufeng County Museum, Baoji, published in Xu Tianjin, ed., Jijin zhuguoshi zhouyuan chutu xizhou qingtongqi jingcui / Fine Western Zhou's Bronzes Unearthed from Zhouyuan, Beijing, 2002, pl. 36.
The style of casting, iconography and decoration of this fragment is also closely related to the famous you vessel in the Musée Cernuschi, Paris, which has a counterpart in the Sumitomo Collection, Japan. While the whole Cernuschi vessel depicts a human being held in the open mouth of a feline figure, debatable whether figure looks scared, the current fragment reveals a figure in similar pose, but with its head inside the beast's mouth. Other elements, such as the stylized elephantine, serpentine and dragon motifs, and the dense scrolling ground, can be found on both pieces. Where the current fragment shows a feline depicted peering between the ears of the taotie mask, the Cernuschi vessel is cast with a cover surmounted by a stylized goat-antelope, also depicted in similar posture. The Cernuschi vessel is illustrated by Mary Tregear, Chinese Art, London, 1997, p. 32, where Gilles Béguin notes that the vessel, purchased in 1920, reputedly came from Hunan, at the foot of Mount Weishan, on the border between the Anhua and Ningxiang districts west of Changsha. He argues that the zoomorphism of the you places it culturally in a southern province, independent of the Shang Kingdom further north, part of the totemic narratives that establish the origins of many aristocratic clans, bringing together man and beast in a protective relationship. While the significance of zoomorphic motifs on archaic bronzes is still contested by scholars, most agree that sculptural animal motifs appear to be a characteristic of bronzes from the south—a tantalizing clue to the origins of the present piece.