Regina Krahl

On this elliptical hu wine container, the designing artisans went to great lengths to vary the motifs of the low-relief decoration in the six horizontal registers, which are all different, and yet achieved superb stylistic harmony. The three taotie bands differ in the treatment of their horns, ears and other features, and the varying distance between the eyes, depending on the size of the mask–besides the central raised ribs the only prominent feature on the vessel surface–beautifully echoes the outline of the vessel, which has its widest part in the lower third.

The taotie bands are alternating with stylized animal borders, of which the uppermost one, near the handles, shows the undulating bodies of elongated creatures curving around unusual dotted roundels. This rare detail is similarly found on bronzes from the tomb of Fu Hao at Anyang, consort of King Wu Ding, the only undisturbed Shang royal tomb so far discovered, which can be dated to around 1200 BC. The motif appears, for example, on a spouted ding and on the three jars of a triple steamer set that are inscribed with the name of Fu Hao (figs 1 and 2), suggesting that the present hu was made around the same date, possibly in the same workshop that also supplied these royal vessels (Yinxu Fu Hao mu / Tomb of Lady Hao at Yinxu in Anyang, Beijing, 1980, fig. 17: 1 and 3; fig. 30; fig. 31: 3; col. pl. 3 and pl. 13: 2). Fu Hao’s tomb itself also contained a pair of oval-bodied hu, but with decoration in high relief considered to represent a somewhat more advanced style, which would point to a slightly earlier date for the present hu, in the late 13th century BC (ibid., pl. 28; one of them illustrated in color in Yinxu qingtong qi / Bronze Vessels from Yin Xu, Beijing, 1985, pl. 23).

A similar hu in the Palace Museum, Beijing, reputedly excavated at Anyang, is illustrated in Gugong jingdian: Gugong qingtong qi tudian / Classics of the Forbidden City. Bronzes of the Forbidden City, Beijing, 2010, no. 43 (fig. 3); another in the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, is published in René-Yvon Lefebvre d’Argencé, Bronze Vessels of Ancient China in the Avery Brundage collects ion, San Francisco, 1977, pl. XIV center; one in the Freer Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., in John Alexander Pope et al., The Freer Chinese Bronzes, Washington, D.C., 1967, pl. 5 (fig. 4); and another, very similar to the Freer hu, was sold in our London rooms, 10th June 1997, lot 112.

A related hu in the Sackler collects ion, somewhat simpler in its overall decoration but stylistically similar, is attributed by Bagley also to the 13th century BC: with just two different taotie bands, lacking any decoration on the neck, it shows only bowstring lines and a scroll band near the handles, and a band of formal hooked motifs between the main registers, similarly repeated at the foot. Bagley’s carefully observed description of its well-calibrated silhouette also fits the present vessel: “At the neck the silhouette is interrupted by a pair of vertical lugs formed into animal heads and curved to repeat the profile of the vessel” (Robert W. Bagley, Shang Ritual Bronzes in the Arthur M. Sackler collects ions, Washington, D.C., 1987, no. 58 and p. 341, the vessel also illustrated on the back of the dust jacket). Another hu similar to the Sackler piece, in the Idemitsu Museum of Arts, Tokyo, is illustrated in Idemitsu Bijutsukan: Kaikan jūgo shūnen kinen ten zuroku / The Fifteenth Anniversary Catalogue, Tokyo, 1981, pl. 1063.

The present hu comes from the important German pre-War collects ion of the industrialist Hans Georg Oeder (1880-1938) of Priemern, Altmark (now Saxony-Anhalt). After his death, his wife Pauline donated a number of bronzes to the East Asian Art collects ion of the Royal Prussian Museums in Berlin, Germany, including the famous Western Zhou tapir vessel and a massive jian from the reign of King Fuchai of Wu (r. 495-473 BC), both of which had been included in the International Exhibition of Chinese Art, Royal Academy of Arts, London, 1935-6 (nos 165 and 581). At the end of the Second World War they were among the many pieces of Chinese art taken as war booty to the Soviet Union and are now in Moscow (probably in the Pushkin Museum) and in the Hermitage, St. Petersburg, respectively (Herbert Butz, ‘Early Chinese Bronzes in the collects ion of the Museum of East Asian Art’, Orientations, October 2000, p. 74, figs 2 and 3). A substantial group of archaic bronzes, however, including this hu, had remained in the family and many important pieces from the collects ion were sold at Replica Shoes ’s in 1984. Oeder’s father, Georg Oeder (1846-1931), was a German landscape painter who assembled a vast collects ion of Japanese art. In Düsseldorf, Germany, a street leading to the Rhine River is named after him, ‘Oederallee’.

康蕊君

本壺紋飾精美繁縟，六層飾紋設計各不相同，卻風格和諧，彰顯藝匠巧思。三層饕餮紋之角、耳及其它特徵處理皆有細微變化。銅壺整體線條柔和，紋飾僅見饕餮紋間扉棱突於表面，紋飾大小及設計皆據壺身曲線張力而變化，可謂紋飾呼應輪廓，典雅瑰麗。

壺身饕餮紋與抽象獸紋相間，尤見頸部的一條橫向夔紋頗為特別。此紋飾甚為鮮見，類者可見於安陽婦好墓出土例。 婦好，商帝武丁之妻，其墓乃迄今為止發現的唯一未受盜擾的商代皇陵，歷史可遠溯至公元前 1200 年左右。參考一婦好墓出土之銅帶流鋬鼎形器以及一套三聯甗，皆飾此類夔紋（圖一及二），由此可推斷本壺應製於相近時期，或出自為王族製作青銅器同一作坊（《殷墟婦好墓》，北京，1980 年，圖 17：1 及 3；圖 30；圖 31：3；彩色圖版 3 和 圖版13: 2）。婦好墓亦出土一對壺例，紋飾起伏明顯，或比本品製作時期略晚，約公元前十三世紀後期（前述出處，圖版28；其中一例可見彩圖載於《殷墟青銅器》，北京，1985 年，圖版 23）。

北京故宮博物院收藏一壺例，傳為安陽出土，載於《故宮經典：故宮青銅器圖典》，北京，2010年，編號43（圖三）；另一例藏於舊金山亞洲藝術博物館，載於René-Yvon Lefebvre d’Argencé，《Bronze Vessels of Ancient China in the Avery Brundage collects ion》，舊金山，1977 年，圖版XIV（中）；再比一例，現存於佛利爾美術館（現國立亞洲藝術博物館），華盛頓，見約翰•亞歷山大•波普等，《The Freer Chinese Bronzes》，華盛頓，1967 年，圖版5（圖四）；另有一例，與佛利爾藏壺非常相似，售於倫敦蘇富比1997 年 6 月 10 日，編號 112。

賽克勒收藏見一壺例，整體紋飾相對略簡，但風格相近，貝格利曾將其斷代為公元前十三世紀。該壺飾兩層饕餮紋，頸飾弦紋，貝格利對於其輪廓的精細描述亦可適用於本品：「整體輪廓由壺頸處一對獸首形貫耳和諧切分，下部則繼續延伸壺身曲線。」（羅伯特•貝格利，《Shang Ritual Bronzes in the Arthur M. Sackler collects ions》，華盛頓，1987 年，編號58 ，頁 341，並見於封底）。另一例與前述賽克勒藏壺相類，藏東京出光美術館，錄《出光美術館：開館十五周年記念展圖錄》，東京，1981年，圖版1063。

本壺出自德國戰前著名工業家Hans Georg Oeder（1880-1938 ）收藏。Oeder去世後，其妻子將數件青銅器捐贈予了德國柏林皇家普魯士博物館，其中包括著名的西周犧尊和吳王夫差鑒，二者均曾展於英國倫敦皇家藝術學院《中國藝術國際展覽會》，1935至1936 年（編號165及581）。二戰結束後，許多中國藝術品被作為戰利品落入蘇聯手中，此兩件青銅重器亦在其中，現在分別藏於莫斯科（或在普希金造型藝術博物館）和聖彼得堡的艾米塔吉博物館（Herbert Butz，〈Early Chinese Bronzes in the collects ion of the Museum of East Asian Art〉，《Orientations》，2000年10月，頁74，圖 2及 3）。除此外，另有許多青銅器仍舊由Oeder家族傳承，其中多件重要藏品於1984年由蘇富比拍出。Oeder之父Georg Oeder （1846-1931）為一位德國風景畫畫家，收藏日本藝術品甚豐。在德國杜塞爾多夫，一條通往萊茵河之街道更以「Oederallee」命名。