China, late Spring and Autumn to Warring States period, 5^th-3^rd century BC. The slender pear-shaped body rising from a spreading pedestal foot, crisply cast with four bands of interlocking beasts with ram heads, all below a band of upright blades enclosing dragons around the tall, waisted neck, the belly set with three taotie masks suspending loose rings, and two taotie masks at the neck suspending rings supporting a chain that terminates in a dragon handle and which is attached to the cover.

The domed cover incised with a ten-character inscription. For further details, please see below.

Provenance: From the private collection of Alan and Simone Hartman, New York. Alan Hartman (1930-2023) was an influential American art dealer, who took over his parents’ antique business in Manhattan and established the legendary Rare Art Gallery on Madison Avenue, with further locations in Dallas and Palm Beach. His wife Simone (née Horowitz) already served as assistant manager of the New York gallery before the couple married in 1975, and together they built a renowned collection for over half a century and became noted art patrons, enriching the collections of important museums including the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (which opened the Alan and Simone Hartman Galleries in 2013) as well as the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Brooklyn Museum in New York. Alan Hartman has been described as the greatest antiques dealer of our generation, and was widely recognized as a world authority in Chinese jade, bronzes, and Asian works of art.
Condition: Good condition, commensurate with age, with extensive wear, nicks, scratches, small dents, minuscule losses, few small cracks, signs of weathering and erosion, and soil encrustations. The bronze is covered in a superb, naturally grown patina with bright cuprite encrustations.
X-Ray Images: for an x-ray image of this lot browse through the images of this listing.

Weight: 1.5 kg
Dimensions: Height 34 cm (with handle) and 28.2 cm (excl. handle)

According to the 'Rites of Zhou' (Zhou Li), hu ritual vessels such as the present lot were used as wine containers during the performance of sacrificial ceremonies in Bronze Age China.

Wine vessels were cast in a variety of designs. Vessels with the lid attached to a long chain handle have been mainly excavated from central and southern Chinese provinces including Henan, Hebei, Shandong, and Guangdong Province. These excavations have shown that actual ropes were passed between the rings around the neck and the corresponding ones on the lid, to hold the lid firmly in place while the vessel was being carried. See Wang Tao, Chinese Bronzes from the Meyingtang Collection, London, 2009, page 96, and J. So, Eastern Zhou Ritual Bronzes from the Arthur Sackler Collections, New York, 1995, volume 3, page 250.

The cover incised with an old inscription written in seal script:

1. Character obscured.
2. Pictograph for "king" with a decorative crown above it, meaning royal.
3. Pictograph of a hand next to a child, referring to a male descendant or son.
   a. When read together, 2 and 3 could be interpreted as prince.
4. Pictograph of a person standing next to a character of a clawed hand holding a vessel. In this case, the person is facing away from the hand, so it may be in a deceased context. The meaning would be to offer in a ritual context.
5. Character obscured.
6. Possibly a reference to the character for water.
7. Possibly a variant of the character for death, showing a person laying still, emphasizing the head with a horizontal line, giving a certain celestial connotation to the character, whether this means heaven, god, or important, is open to interpretation.
   b. When viewed together with character 6, this gives the meaning of a cave or tomb.
8. The character ‘shi’ which depicts a memorial tablet for spiritual rituals next to a character showing the dawn above the horizon. Usually a reference for grieving.
9. There are similarities here to a few pictograms, from a person riding an animal to one talking about a person's roots, but it could also be interpreted as a surname.
10. Character obscured.

Literature comparison:
Compare a related bronze hu, dated to the Warring States period, 3^rd century BC, 30 cm tall, in the Musée Royal de Mariemont, Morlanwelz, Belgium, inventory number Ac.84/1.

Auction result comparison:
Type: Closely related
Auction: Christie’s New York, 21 March 2014, lot 2023
Price: USD 125,000 or approx. EUR 155,000 converted and adjusted for inflation at the time of writing
Description: A bronze ritual wine vessel and cover, hu, late Spring and Autumn period, late 6th-5th century BC
Expert remark: Compare the similar form, as well as the closely related manner of casting and decoration. Note the larger size (41.9 cm).