Shang Dynasty, Anyang Phase, 1400 – 1100 BCE,
12th Century BCE
Height: 21.6 cm
This crisply cast bronze Liding has a silver grey patina with cuprite and shades of malachite green encrustation on the surface. From the flared mouth rim rise a pair of thick flat loop handles. Below the neck is a thick band of leiwen design and masks. The robustly lobed belly of the Liding has three pendulous sections terminating in rounded points where the three round tapering legs join the body.
Centered, with the protruding nose directly above each of the legs, is a prominent dissolved ox head pattern including bold upturned horns, against a geometric feather-like design. Between each head, on the neck, the vertical flange enhanced in size and with hooked decoration continues down to the large Ox head separating the raised horns and eyes above the raised mouth.
Raised cheeks are separated to the side of the face. The combination of this powerful shape and the distinct decorative features of this rare archaic bronze vessel appear to be almost unique amongst published and known Archaic Bronze Li.
PROVENANCE:
J. Abraham Cohen Collection
New York Chinese Private Collection, New York, 2007
Important North American Collection, 2011
EXHIBITED:
WEISBROD - 35 YEARS, Including Chinese Ceramics from the Donald Sherwin Collection, Spring 2007, Weisbrod Chinese Art, Ltd., New York, catalogue number 1.
PUBLISHED:
WEISBROD - 35 YEARS, Including Chinese Ceramics from the Donald Sherwin Collection, Spring 2007, Weisbrod Chinese Art, Ltd., New York, catalogue number 1.
A bronze Li Ding of slightly smaller size, also with an ox head pattern, formerly exhibited in New York by C.T. Loo, in 1939, later in the Dr. A.F. Phillips Collection, and subsequently in the collection of the British Rail Pension Fund, purchased by Mr. Anthony Hardy, Hong Kong, who sold it at Christie’s New York, September 16, 2010.
It was recently illustrated by Li Xueqin in The Glorious Traditions of Chinese Bronzes, no. 6. A slightly smaller Li Ding with taotie masks on the lobed belly and a thick band of dragon taotie on the neck is published in A Catalogue of the Chinese Bronzes in the Alfred E Pillsbury Collection by Bernhard Karlgren, no. 7.
A larger but similarly shaped Li is illustrated in Shang Ritual Bronzes in the Arthur M. Sackler Collections by Robert W. Bagley, figure 89.2. Also in that same publication is an even larger example of a Li that has a similar ox head pattern, though less prominently cast, fig. 89. An archaic bronze Yan with a similar silver grey patina was sold at Sotheby’s New York on March 30th 2006, lot 259