Two archaistic bronze vases, Song - Ming dynasty

Bottle vase:

Collection of Paul Freeman.

Sotheby's New York, 21st March 2015, lot 729.

The lower register of the present bottle vase bears a close resemblance to a similar Southern Song bottle vase, without handles, included in Recasting the Past, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 2025, cat. no. 52; and a related example excavated from the Sinan Wreck (ca. 1323), ibid., cat. no. 31. Also compare another related vase, also without handles, attributed to the Southern Song dynasty in Sydney L. Moss, The Second Bronze Age: Later Chinese Metalwork, London, 1991, cat. no. 74.

In form, the present squat vase is closely related to larger ritual bronze hu vessels of the Eastern Zhou and Han dynasties. In his notes, Hausmann attributes this vase to the Six Dynasties period (220-581) possibly extending to the Sui Dynasty period (581-618).