Busacca Gallery

A Very Old Chinese Bronze Ding. Bronze ding with handles standing on lobed feet. Condition: As depicted. 3⅝ in. to handles x 5¼ in. In Chinese history and culture, possession of one or more ancient dings is often associated with power and dominion over the land. Therefore, the ding is often used as an implicit symbolism for power. The term "inquiring of the ding" (Chinese: pinyin: wèn dǐng) is often used interchangeably with the quest for power. In the early Bronze Age of China, the use of wine and food vessels served a religious purpose. While ding were the most important food vessels, wine vessels were the more prominent ritual bronzes of this time, likely due to the belief in Shamanism and spirit worship. Ding were used to make ritual sacrifices, both human and animal, to ancestors. They varied in size, indicating that whole animals were likely sacrificed. The sacrifices were meant to appease ancestors due to the Shang belief that spirits had the capability to affect the world of the living. If the ancestors were happy, the living would be blessed with good fortune. - Our job is to find and target great art by collecting a vast array of contemporary, vintage, antique and collectible items from across the globe. Individually handcrafted, we breathe new life into these forgotten relics by giving back each piece it's unique story. *All of the art is edited and chosen by us for its high quality and workmanship before posting. These collectibles have been selected with the artist & collector in mind. We are committed to enhancing our customer’s lives by discovering creating, and pointing out only the best art we can find in the world today. We Are Taste-Makers, Art Advisers, Consultants & Publishers Of Spectacular Art Stories. Our job is to be intermediaries between buyers and sellers. We are vetting for high end art patrons. We are determined to catalog the world's most exceptional art and share it with everyone.

Link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ding_(vessel)

Food vessels such as fu, gui, and dui that were popular in Zhou times disappeared by the Han dynasty, during which the ding, zhong, hu, and fang were the main vessel types used. In Western and Eastern Han, the ding was one of the most common bronze-derived shapes in pottery.



In Western China in an area controlled by Qin, small, shallow tripod ding vessels were produced. For these vessels, groups of ceramic and bronze vessels buried together reveal that Western Zhou vessel types continued to exist over different time periods. Tombs at Baoji and Hu Xian, for example, contain sets of ding among others that are shallow and with cabriole legs. The role of ding vessels in the Zhou period continued, as Qin cemeteries contained ding vessels that expressed rank.





Ding vessels were used throughout the Shang and Zhou dynasties and later time periods. Round, tripod ding vessels are emblematic of the Shang and Western and Eastern Zhou periods. Western Zhou ding vessels departed from the Shang aesthetic in terms of their oddly-proportioned legs.



In Late Western Zhou, sets of ding and gui were used to indicate rank; a feudal lord would be entitled to nine ding and six gui, while lesser officials were entitled to a smaller number of vessels. Likewise, late Zhou bronzes were often very large, suggesting corresponding wealth. Early Eastern Zhou bronzes descended directly from those of Western Zhou. In later times, in the middle Warring States period, the three-legged ding would be one of the most popular ceramic forms imitating bronzes.



Today, the architecture of the Shanghai Museum is intended to resemble a bronze ding.