WARRING STATES PERIOD, 5TH CENTURY BC

Details

A FINELY CAST BRONZE BELL, BO ZHONG
WARRING STATES PERIOD, 5TH CENTURY BC
Of lenticular form, each side with a plain central panel flanked by alternating rows of coiled serpent bosses and interlaced dragon scroll, all within raised borders, the dragon scroll repeated in a shaped configuration below and again on the flat top below the handle formed by two confronted dragons biting the suspension loop
9¼ in. (23.5 cm.) high

Provenance

Hans Odder Collection, Germany, circa 1920s.
Sotheby's, London, 19 June 1984, lot 10.

Exhibited

Ostasiatische Kunst und Chinoiserie, Cologne, 1953.

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Lot Essay

Like yong zhong, bo zhong were made for use in graduated sets, and according to J. So in Eastern Zhou Ritual Bronzes from the Arthur M. Sackler Collections, Arthur M. Sackler Foundation, Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, 1995, p. 381, bo zhong and niu zhong appear to have displaced the graduated set of yong zhong after the 5th century BC.

A set of nineteen bo zhong of graduated sizes cast with very similar designs and of similar proportions was excavated in 1988 from the tomb of Zhaoqing, a high-ranking noble of the Jin State, in Jinsheng Village, Taiyuan, Shaanxi province, and is now in the Shaanxi Archaeological Institute. See Zhongguo Qingtongqi Quanji - 8 - Dong Zhou (2), Beijing, 1995, pp. 98-103, nos. 111-4.

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