An archaic bronze ritual food vessel (Ding), Late Shang dynasty

Collection of F. Cleveland Morgan (1881-1962).

Bequeathed to the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, Montreal, in 1962 (accession no. 1962.ed.40).

Adorned with swirling taotie masks, glaring out in protection, the present vessel represents a grand and imposing example of an ancient Chinese icon - the bronze ding. 

Vessels of this type, composed of bowls on three pointed legs, were among the earliest pottery vessels produced in China’s Neolithic period, almost eight thousand years ago. In the Bronze Age, as artisans moved beyond earthenware, it was the present ding form with two looped handles and grand trunk-like legs, that they turned to as a functional and visually striking innovation. From its humble origins as a receptacle designed to sit above a fire source, the Shang dynasty saw these bronze ding transform into something far more fundamental – striking symbols of religious and cultural power. Used by shamans in esoteric rituals now lost to the sands of time and buried with the dead in only the most distinguished tombs, even millennia later these grand vessels – cast with boldly rendered high-relief iconography – continue to strike the beholder with a sense of awe and majesty.

The close association of this ding form with antiquity preserved its legacy in later dynasties as a symbol of kingship, power and China’s ancient roots. Although its tall legs make reproduction in ceramics a challenge, the enduring legacy of the ding left potters with little choice but to contend with its sculptural form. As incense burners, vessels of ding form belonged to the regular repertoire of the manufactories at Longquan in Zhejiang in the Southern Song (1127-1279), at Jingdezhen in Jiangxi in the late Ming (1368-1644), and at Dehua in Fujian in the Qing dynasty (1644-1911) and continue to inspire artisans and collectors alike to this day.

At the heart of the broad bowl of the present vessel lies an inscription cast in antiquity, attributing this ding to the Beishan (‘Northern Shan’) clan. While the precise identity of this group remains unclear, the wealth of other important bronze vessels attributed to them and the identification of the neighboring East, South and West Shan groups in oracle bone inscriptions suggest that the Shan likely refers to a specific ancient polity of considerable wealth and influence. For a broader discussion of Beishan marks and a bronze fangyi bearing a related Beishan ge mark, see Robert W. Bagley, Shang Ritual Bronzes in the Arthur M. Sackler Collections, Washington, D.C., 1987, pp 428-433, pl. 77.

Compare an almost identical ding of this design, illustrated in Alexander C. Soper, ‘Early, Middle and Late Shang: A Note’, Artibus Asiae, vol. XXVIII, 1966, fig. 11 and sold in our London rooms, 14th April 1970, lot 54; and another closely related example from the collections of H. K. Burnet and Count Antoine Seilern sold in our London rooms, 4th April 1941, lot 368, illustrated in William Watson, Ancient Chinese Bronzes, London, 1962, pl. 15a, and sold again at Christie’s London, 17th June 1982, lot 7.