| OBJECT UNDER SPOTLIGHT | |
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ARCHAIC BRONZE WINE VESSEL, Guang, "Gong"
Featured in our exhibition, Archetypes and Archaism. March 20-29. Late Shang/early Western Zhou Dynasty, 11th - 10th century BCE Length: 9 inches (22.9 cm) Click here for the essay by Professor Robert J. Poor describing this RARE "ANCIENT WINE VESSEL" in its historical context. Description: |
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The bronze vessel is of elongated, bellied form with a spout formed by the mouth rim extending up and outwards at one end. Each side of the body is decorated with a large bird with a long, hooked beak, plume, wing and tail feathers enclosing c-curls. Above the wing of the large bird is another very small bird in flight. Between the birds under the spout are two kui dragons with hooked beaks and claws. At the opposite end is a handle springing from a bovine head just under the rim looping back under the belly of the vessel. An oval straight-sided high foot with a pair of birds facing forward toward the spout on each side supports the body. The zoomorphic cover with bottle-horned dragon extends over the mouth of the vessel. A snake, with turned up tail, crawls along the spine, emerging between the horns on the forehead of the dragon. Snail curls emerge from each side of the dragon's nose and enlarged leiwen patterns define the eyebrows and cheeks. A bird with long tail feathers decorated with c-curls is on each side of the cover, which terminates as the head of a beast or bird having large round eyes, horns with c-curls and a protruding tongue.
Archaic bronze guang are extremely rare although several exist in museum collections of differing size and design. The guang vessel was used to pour wine. While the history and origin of the vessel are obscure, the form seems to appear only in late Shang and to have disappeared during the Western Zhou dynasty. During the Shang dynasty, bronze vessels began to take on new and dynamic shapes and animal décor that were once cast in compartmentalized bands began to flow into one another. In the lid of this guang, the dragon's body or tail metamorphoses into an animal head, probably a bird. Two similar guang, are published with the dominating bird motif on the body and the bottle-horned dragon lid. The example in the Avery Brundage Collection: The Ancient Chinese Bronzes, M.H. de Young Memorial Museum, San Francisco, California, plate 21b, and the well-known late Shang dynasty guang in the Shanghai Museum, with a higher foot, illustrated in their catalogue, plate 69 and 70, have subtle structural and design differences. Another Shang guang with a more elaborate lid is in the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, illustrated in Hai-Wai Yi-Chen Chinese Art Overseas Collections, Bronzes II, plate 61. An earlier Shang guang, of similar size, with compartmentalized designs against a leiwen background, is in the Norton Gallery and School of Art, West Palm Beach, illustrated in Ritual Vessels of Bronze Age China, plate 34. Click here to view this and all the object in ARCHETYPES AND ARCHAISM Catalog If you would like more information on this ARCHAIC BRONZE WINE VESSEL, Guang, please click here. |
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| View our Object Under Spotlight for March, 2001. | |
| View our Object Under Spotlight for February, 2001. | |
| Object Under Spotlight for January, 2001. Sold | |
| View our Object Under Spotlight for December, 2000. | |
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