An important archaic bronze ritual tripod wine vessel, Jia


Early Western Zhou DynastyThe bulbous vessel divided into three bulging lobes each elegantly tapered to a straight leg, simply cast with a pair of 'bow strings' encircling and outlining the lobes in zigzag form, with a further bow-string to the tall cylindrical neck set with a bovine head issuing a loop handle, rising to a gently flaring rim cast with a pair of prominent posts with caps, an inscription beneath the handle reading 'Quan bo zuo fu bao zun yi'. 35.5cm (13 3/4in) high
|西周早期 青銅斝「犬白乍父寶尊彝」銘文Provenance:C.T. Loo, New York, no.87246Frank Caro, New YorkArthur M. Sackler Collection, acc.no.V-142Christie's New York, 1 December 1994, lot 130Jean-Yves Ollivier CollectionPublished and Illustrated:Chen Mengjia, Mei diguozhuyi jielüede woguo yinzhou tongqi jilu, Beijing, 1962, M.Matsumaru adapted, A Corpus of Chinese Bronzes in American Collections, Tokyo, 1977, pp.66&621, no.A321N.Barnard & K.Y. Cheung, Rubbings and Hand Copies of Bronze Inscriptions in Chinese, Japanese, European, American, and Australasian Collections, Taipei, 1978, no.603J.Rawson, Western Zhou Ritual Bronzes from the Arthur M Sackler Collections, vol.IIB, Cambridge MA, 1990, pp.654-655, no.110來源：紐約古董商盧芹齋先生舊藏，編號87246紐約古董商法蘭克·卡羅先生舊藏美國賽克勒舊藏，編號V-1421994年12月1日於紐約佳士得拍賣，拍品130號歐宗易先生珍藏出版及著錄：陳夢家編，松丸道雄改編，《殷周青銅器分類圖錄》，東京，1977年，頁66及621，編號A321N. Barnard及張光裕編，《中日歐美澳紐所見所拓所摹金文彙編》，台北，1978年，編號603J. Rawson著,《Western Zhou Ritual Bronzes from the Arthur M. Sackler Collections（賽克勒藏西周青銅禮器）》, 卷IIB, 麻省劍橋, 1990年, 頁654-655, 編號110Arthur M.Sackler (1913–1987) was an American psychiatrist, art collector, and philanthropist whose fortune originated in medical advertising and trade publications. He began collecting art in the 1940s. His collection was composed of tens of thousands of works including Chinese, Indian, and Middle Eastern as well as Renaissance and pre-Columbian art. He founded galleries at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Princeton University, the Arthur M. Sackler Museum at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and the Arthur M. Sackler Museum of Art and Archaeology. In 1987, the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery of the Smithsonian Institution, in Washington, D.C. was opened months after his death. Sackler had a particular interest though in archaic Chinese bronzes and his collection of Chinese art that was donated to the Smithsonian was considered one of the largest collections of ancient Chinese art in the world. Following his death, The Arthur M. Sackler Museum of Art and Archaeology, was opened at Peking University in 1993.Jia with large, broad lobes and wide, flaring necks were popular from the late Shang period and into the early Western Zhou period, mainly in undercoated versions. By the middle Western Zhou, tall jia had been replaced by shorter ones with proportionally shorter necks. Rong Geng indicates the function of jia was to keep the wine warm by burning charcoal underneath, see Rong Geng, Shangzhou yiqi tongkao (The Study of Shang and Zhou Ritual Bronze), Beijing, vol.1, 1941, p.45. This argument can be proved by a number of excavated jia which retained dark charcoal ash on the bottom and limescale in the interior caused by heating; see jia unearthed in Zhengzhou, Henan Province, tomb C8M32, no.2 and tomb M3, no.4, noted by Zhu Fenghan, Zhongguo gudai qingtongqi (Chinese Archaic Bronze), Tianjin, 1994, p.93. The seven-character inscription beneath the handle reads:犬白乍父寶尊彝Which may be translated as:'Earl of Quan made this precious sacrificial vessel for the late father'.This would suggest that this vessel was placed in a tomb to supply the ancestor with wine. However, it could also be that the deceased was required to continue the rituals in the afterlife to honour ancestors who had preceded them. The pictographic character quan can be either read as the emblem of a family or a family name, which appears to have been active during the late Shang dynasty and early Western Zhou dynasty. Examples bearing the same character are mainly in a style seen on those found in today's Henan Province, see a bronze ding inscribed with the character quan, late Shang dynasty, which is illustrated by Wang Tao and Liu Yu, A Selection of Early Chinese Bronzes with Inscriptions from Sotheby's and Christie's Sales, Shanghai, 2007, no.44; see another bronze zhi bearing quan, early Western Zhou dynasty, which is illustrated by Liu Tizhi, Xiaojiao Jingge Jinwen Taben (Rubbings of Archaic Bronze Inscriptions at the Xiaojiaojingge Studio), vol.5, p.75, no.2.Compare with two related bronze jia, the first in the Arthur M. Sackler Collections, 12th-11th century BC, and the second, the Mu Gui jia, said to be from Anyang, in the Shanghai Museum, illustrated by R.W.Bagley, Shang Ritual Bronzes in the Arthur M. Sackler Collections, Cambridge MA, 1987, pp.172-173 and 175, fig.10.2. See also another similar jia, Shang or Western Zhou dynasties, in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, illustrated by J.Rawson, Western Zhou Ritual Bronzes from the Arthur M. Sackler Collections, Volume IIB, Cambridge MA, 1990, p.656, fig.110.3.斝侈口，口沿兩側鑄一對菌形柱耳，耳身飾弦紋兩匝。束頸，頸身亦飾弦紋兩周，圓肩起弦紋一道，斝腹分襠三足，其內中空，飾以兩層三角形弦紋。斝身一側鑄牛首鋬，鋬中空，內餘范土，所對斝壁鑄有七字銘文。斝身光素，被橄欖綠皮殼。亞瑟·M·赛克勒是美國著名的心理醫生，收藏家和慈善家，發跡於醫療廣告和出版行業，其數萬件收藏始於1940年代，涵蓋中國、印度、中東以及文藝復興和美洲早期藝術。他設立諸多美術館，包括美國大都會博物館和普林斯頓大學的展館、哈佛大學亞瑟·M·賽克勒美術館和亞瑟·M·賽克勒藝術和考古博物館。賽克勒對中國古代青銅器情有獨鐘，其贈與史密斯學會的銅器被公認為全世界最大規模的中國青銅器收藏之一。1987年，在其辭世數月之後，華盛頓史密斯學會亞瑟·M·赛克勒美術館開幕，1993年，北京大學赛克勒藝術与考古博物館亦隨之設立。商代晚期的斝多高大而重裝飾，入周以後逐漸化繁為簡，至西周中期普遍身形變小，多敞口外侈，短頸，薄壁素身，口鑄雙柱。容庚認為斝為溫酒器，足下燒炭以保溫，見容庚著，《商周彝器通考》，北京，1941年，頁45。此觀點為現代考古所證實，數件出土斝底部有煙爨痕跡，器內亦留白色水鏽，是為受熱所致，參考河南鄭州出土的兩件斝，墓C8M32出土的2號斝及墓M3出土的4號斝，見朱鳳瀚著，《古代中國青銅器》，天津，1994年，頁93。銘文「犬白乍父寶尊彝」中「白」通「伯」，「乍」通「作」，意為犬伯為先父鑄造這件寶貴的彝器。此器或作為陪葬，或為死者後人供奉於宗廟作為祭器。「犬」或為族徽或為族名，從出土器物時期推斷，犬族可能活躍於商晚期至西周早期。帶有「犬」字銘文的器物多出土於河南地區，如玫茵堂舊藏一件商代晚期青銅鼎，見王濤及劉雨編，《流散歐美殷周有銘青銅器集錄》，上海，2007年，編號44；另有一觶，也帶此銘文，見劉體智編，《小校經閣金石文字》，卷五，頁75，編號2。賽克勒舊藏另外一件商晚期或西周早期斝及上海博物館所藏一件據傳處於安陽的西周早期母癸斝可作參考，見Robert W. Bagley著，《Shang Ritual Bronzes in the Arthur M. Sackler Collections（賽克勒藏商代青銅禮器）》，麻省劍橋，1987年，頁172-173及175，圖10.2。紐約大都會博物館藏有一件商晚期或西周早期斝亦資參考，見Jessica Rawson著，《Western Zhou Ritual Bronzes from the Arthur M. Sackler Collections（賽克勒藏西周青銅禮器）》，麻省劍橋，1990年，頁656， 圖110.3。