拍賣筆記 vol.349 佳士得紐約2026：60.96萬美元售出，西周中期青銅「伯㦰父」簋 - Christie’s NY 2026, The Bo Xian Fu Gui Bronze Ritual Food Vessel, Gui, Sold for US$609,600

這件佳士得拍品以67個鑄造銘文（內底七列豎行）聞名，記錄了周王從成周（洛陽）南征「服子」，伯㦰父隨軍參與戰事，執訊十人、馘廿（割敵耳二十）、得俘，並獲賞五十鈞金（約750公斤銅料），遂鑄此簋以「對揚」王恩、祭祀祖考，祈「萬年子子孫孫永寶用」。

在中國古代藝術品市場中，銘文往往是決定一件文物價值的關鍵『隱形加分項』。商周青銅禮器尤其如此：器物本身雖工藝精湛，但若內鑄長篇銘文，便從單純的禮器升格為歷史文獻的載體。

這件佳士得拍賣的西周中期伯㦰父簋，正是典型例證。其內底鑄有67字金文，詳細記載周王自成周南征『服子』，伯㦰父隨軍執訊、馘敵、得俘，並獲五十鈞銅料賞賜，遂鑄此器對揚王休、祭祀先祖、祈福子孫永寶。這些內容不僅補充了傳世文獻對西周中期南方征伐、政治結構與賞賜制度的空白，還為斷代研究提供了精確坐標。

正因銘文具備第一手史料價值，此類『有銘重器』在學術界與收藏界備受推崇。其價格遠高於無銘或短銘同類器物，反映出市場對『歷史重量』的認可——美學欣賞之外，更在於它作為『活檔案』的不可替代性。類似現象也見於書畫領域：名家題跋往往比畫心本身更能推升價值。對注重長期文化資產配置的藏家而言，此類兼具藝術與史證雙重屬性的器物，正是穿越市場週期波動的穩健選擇。

首陽齋珍藏高古中國青銅器

西周中期 公元前十一世紀晚期至十世紀晚期

青銅「伯㦰父」簋

MID-WESTERN ZHOU DYNASTY, LATE 11TH-LATE 10TH CENTURY BC

估價

美元 200,000 – 美元 300,000

銘文：

唯王九月初吉庚午王

出自成周南征伐及（服）子

□桐潏伯㦰父從王伐

親執訊十父馘廿得俘

金五十鈞用作寶簋對揚用享于父祖考用眉享

壽其萬年子子孫孫永寶用

12 ½ in. (31.8 cm.) across handles, cloth box

來源

購於香港，1990年代前後

首陽齋，紐約

出版

周亞，馬今洪，胡嘉麟編，《首陽吉金：胡盈瑩、范季融藏中國古代青銅器》，上海，2008年，頁106-7，編號36

《首陽吉金：胡盈瑩、范季融藏中國古代青銅器》，寧波，2009年，頁23

沈寶春，高佑仁同編，《首陽吉金選釋 : 附2008年金文學年鑑》，台北，2009年，頁107-53

吳鎮峰，《商周青銅器銘文暨圖像集成》，卷十一，上海，2012年，頁388-9，編號05276

羅新慧，《首陽吉金疏證》，上海，2016年，頁97-105，編號18

展覽

「首陽吉金：胡盈瑩、范季融藏中國古代青銅器」，2008年10月至2011年1月巡展於上海，上海博物館；香港，香港中文大學文物館；寧波， 寧波博物館；芝加哥，芝加哥藝術博物館，編號36

商末以降，吉金長銘多記國政軍旅，足補史冊之闕，可窺王政與秩序。今所論伯㦰父簋，於史事與制度二端，皆稱卓然。其內底鑄銘七行六十七字，記伯㦰父奉命南征。文曰：「唯王九月初吉庚午，王出自成周南征伐及服子，麌、桐、潏。伯㦰父從王伐，親執訊十父，馘廿，得俘，金五十鈞，用作寶簋對揚，用享于父祖考，用易賜享，壽其萬年，子子孫孫永寶用。」可釋為：九月初吉庚午，王自成周出師，南征以撫諸「服子」。至麌、桐、潏諸地，伯㦰父從王征討，親執十人而訊，斬獲敵左耳二十並俘。王以其功賜金五十鈞。伯㦰父用是金鑄作寶簋，以宣王恩，薦享祖考，且承王厚賜，冀其萬年長保，子孫永世寶用。此銘不惟可資考訂地名、紀日與軍功之實，亦為其役規模之生動評註。王躬統軍，自成周啟行，而俘獲、賞賜悉以數目著錄，足見王廷總攝之大舉，兵力當在數百之眾，非小股掠襲可比。

銘中所涉辭義與地望，久為學界關注，羅新慧主編《首陽集金疏證》所輯尤詳。成周為西周東都，即今洛陽一帶，乃四方貢賦所會，亦為王室安置殷遺民、發動征討之中樞，所征多在淮上邊陲。「服子」一語，尤值審釋。《國語·周語上》言五服之制，示王朝經營四方、羈縻遠服之意。今銘所云，蓋指南方歸服之屬。「服」兼有歸服、征服與服事之義，可釋為「被撫服之民」或「南方屬民」，宜存周人本義，毋以後世族名牽附。

銘中麌、桐、潏三地，蓋屬淮水流域戰場。麌或即偃姓古國，約在今安徽六安以西；桐之所在未定，或指桐城一帶，或近洪澤湖濱；潏或與「粵」、「雩」相通，多讀為雩婁，當淮上要地。諸說皆屬暫擬，然足見此次南征之所重，亦見王朝以武靖邊、執訊立威之經略。

其賞賚與作器之制，亦可資制度史之考。銘稱王賜「金五十鈞」。據《說文解字》，一鈞為三十斤，則五十鈞約合一千五百斤。然西周金文所謂「金」，多指金屬或鑄料，非必黃金，故不宜逕釋為貴金屬。其後言「用作寶簋對揚……用享于父祖考」，明示王恩與宗祀相互表裡。以王賜鑄器，既彰顯王德，復薦享先祖，使王恩繫於宗廟，延及子孫，實周人以器載德、以祀續族之常制。

此簋亦可參諸同類器與同時金文系譜而觀。吳鎮烽書指本簋為四伯㦰父簋之一，見《商周青銅器銘文暨圖像集成》，上海，2012年，卷11，編號5267。李學勤文論餘二簋，見〈談西周厲王時伯㦰父簋〉，《安作璋先生史學研究六十周年紀念文集》，2007年。一簋今藏中國文物信息諮詢中心。由出土器比勘形制與紋飾，可得初步年代判斷。本制與紋近於陝西藍田王川1963年所出彌伯簋，(圖一) 其銘辭多歸西周恭王。（圖二）本器之若干特徵，亦與陝西長安張家坡所出夷王元年師史簋相合。尤可注意者，本足稜角雲雷目紋，與北京故宮藏諫簋極為相似，其年定於孝王。綜合諸證，本簋年代或在孝王與夷王之間。

然就文字系聯而觀，其年代猶可商榷。李學勤據台北故宮博物院藏㝬鐘所銘「南國服子敢陷處我土，王敦伐其至」，認為與本器所記南征相參。又桐、潏之地，復見於廖生盨與鄂侯馭方鼎銘文，疑涉同一軍事背景，遂推為厲王時事。是則形制比勘與銘辭互證，尚存張力。蓋西周中期，自昭、穆而下、至恭、懿、孝、夷諸王，史料尤稀，故金文實為重建政區形勢、軍事活動與王權運作之關鍵依據，非僅旁證而已。

總而言之，伯㦰父簋之意義可歸納為三。其一，銘文記一次南征，繫時著地，詳載戰功，使史事條貫，昭然可考。其二，呈現王朝賞賚，藉宗廟禮器而著其形跡，使王德與家祀相資而存。其三，與同期諸鐘鼎銘辭互參，勾勒西周南疆局勢與整合過程。是以此簋不僅為王權施於邊陲之實證，亦為宗廟中之王恩所寄，彌足珍貴。

Early Chinese Bronzes from the Shouyang Studio

THE BO XIAN FU GUIA HIGHLY IMPORTANT DOCUMENTARY BRONZE RITUAL FOOD VESSEL, GUI

MID-WESTERN ZHOU DYNASTY, LATE 11TH-LATE 10TH CENTURY BC

Price realised

USD 609,600

Estimate

USD 200,000 – USD 300,000

THE BO XIAN FU GUI

A HIGHLY IMPORTANT DOCUMENTARY BRONZE RITUAL FOOD VESSEL, GUI

MID-WESTERN ZHOU DYNASTY, LATE 11TH-LATE 10TH CENTURY BC

The interior of the vessel is cast with a sixty-seven-character inscription which may be translated as 'On the gengwu day, the first auspicious day of the ninth month, the king set out from Chengzhou to campaign south and subdue the fu-zi. In the regions of Ying, Tong, and Yue, Bo Xian Fu followed the king on campaign, and seized and interrogated ten men, took the left ears of twenty enemies as trophies, and captured prisoners. As a reward he received fifty jun of metal. With this he made this precious gui vessel in order to proclaim and exalt the [king’s] beneficence, to make offerings to his ancestors, and to accept the bestowed favor. [May he] enjoy long life of ten thousand years; [may] sons and grandsons treasure and use it forever.'

12 ½ in. (31.8 cm.) across handles, cloth box

PROVENANCE

Acquired in Hong Kong, circa 1990s.

The Shouyang Studio, New York.

LITERATURE

Zhou Ya, Ma Jinhong, and Hu Jialin ed., Ancient Chinese Bronzes from the Shouyang Studio: The Katherine and George Fan Collection, Shanghai, 2008, pp. 106-7, no. 36.

Ancient Chinese Bronzes from the Shouyang Studio: The Katherine and George Fan Collection, Ningbo, 2009, p. 23.

Shen Baochun and Gao Youren, Shou yang ji jin xuan shi: fu 2008 nian jin wen xue nian jian, (Selected Research on Shouyang Jijin: Including the 2008 Annual Review of Bronze Inscriptions), Taipei, 2009, pp. 107-53.

Wu Zhenfeng, Shangzhou qingtongqi mingwen ji tuxiang jicheng (Compendium of Inscriptions and Images of Bronzes from the Shang and Zhou Dynasties), vol.11, Shanghai, 2012, pp. 388-9, no. 05276.

Luo Xinhui, Shouyang Jijin Shuzheng (Textual Research of Inscriptions from Bronze Collection of The Shouyang Studio), Shanghai, 2016, pp. 97-105, no. 18.

EXHIBITED

Ancient Chinese Bronzes from the Shouyang Studio: The Katherine and George Fan Collection, October 2008 - January 2011: Shanghai, Shanghai Museum; Hong Kong, Art Gallery, The Chinese University of Hong Kong; Ningbo, Ningbo Museum; Chicago, Art Institute of Chicago, no. 36.

Early Chinese Bronzes from the Shouyang Studio

THE BO XIAN FU GUIA HIGHLY IMPORTANT DOCUMENTARY BRONZE RITUAL FOOD VESSEL, GUI

MID-WESTERN ZHOU DYNASTY, LATE 11TH-LATE 10TH CENTURY BC

Price realised

USD 609,600

Estimate

USD 200,000 – USD 300,000

THE BO XIAN FU GUI

A HIGHLY IMPORTANT DOCUMENTARY BRONZE RITUAL FOOD VESSEL, GUI

MID-WESTERN ZHOU DYNASTY, LATE 11TH-LATE 10TH CENTURY BC

The interior of the vessel is cast with a sixty-seven-character inscription which may be translated as 'On the gengwu day, the first auspicious day of the ninth month, the king set out from Chengzhou to campaign south and subdue the fu-zi. In the regions of Ying, Tong, and Yue, Bo Xian Fu followed the king on campaign, and seized and interrogated ten men, took the left ears of twenty enemies as trophies, and captured prisoners. As a reward he received fifty jun of metal. With this he made this precious gui vessel in order to proclaim and exalt the [king’s] beneficence, to make offerings to his ancestors, and to accept the bestowed favor. [May he] enjoy long life of ten thousand years; [may] sons and grandsons treasure and use it forever.'

12 ½ in. (31.8 cm.) across handles, cloth box

PROVENANCE

Acquired in Hong Kong, circa 1990s.

The Shouyang Studio, New York.

LITERATURE

Zhou Ya, Ma Jinhong, and Hu Jialin ed., Ancient Chinese Bronzes from the Shouyang Studio: The Katherine and George Fan Collection, Shanghai, 2008, pp. 106-7, no. 36.

Ancient Chinese Bronzes from the Shouyang Studio: The Katherine and George Fan Collection, Ningbo, 2009, p. 23.

Shen Baochun and Gao Youren, Shou yang ji jin xuan shi: fu 2008 nian jin wen xue nian jian, (Selected Research on Shouyang Jijin: Including the 2008 Annual Review of Bronze Inscriptions), Taipei, 2009, pp. 107-53.

Wu Zhenfeng, Shangzhou qingtongqi mingwen ji tuxiang jicheng (Compendium of Inscriptions and Images of Bronzes from the Shang and Zhou Dynasties), vol.11, Shanghai, 2012, pp. 388-9, no. 05276.

Luo Xinhui, Shouyang Jijin Shuzheng (Textual Research of Inscriptions from Bronze Collection of The Shouyang Studio), Shanghai, 2016, pp. 97-105, no. 18.

EXHIBITED

Ancient Chinese Bronzes from the Shouyang Studio: The Katherine and George Fan Collection, October 2008 - January 2011: Shanghai, Shanghai Museum; Hong Kong, Art Gallery, The Chinese University of Hong Kong; Ningbo, Ningbo Museum; Chicago, Art Institute of Chicago, no. 36.

The lengthy bronze inscriptions that appear on the bronze vessels and other implements of the Late Shang dynasty and onward offer direct windows into the political and military history of the period. They preserve events that other documented histories often omit and, no less importantly, they reveal the structures of authority and rank that governed early Chinese society. The present Bo Xian Fu gui is exceptional on both counts. Its sixty-seven-character inscription, cast in seven vertical columns on the interior base, records a specific southern campaign in which Bo Xian Fu took part under royal command. The text reads: 「唯王九月初吉庚午王，出自成周南征伐及服子，X桐潏伯X父從王伐，親執訊十父馘廿得俘，金五十鈞用作寶簋對揚，用享于父祖考用賜眉享，壽其萬年子子孫孫永寶用。」and may be translated as 'On the gengwu day, the first auspicious day of the ninth month, the king set out from Chengzhou to campaign south and subdue the fu-zi. In the regions of Ying, Tong, and Yue, Bo Xian Fu followed the king on campaign, and seized and interrogated ten men, took the ears of twenty enemies as trophies, and captured prisoners. As a reward he received fifty jun of metal. With this he made this precious gui vessel in order to proclaim and exalt the [king’s] beneficence, to make offerings to his ancestors, and to accept the bestowed favor. [May he] enjoy long life of ten thousand years; [may] sons and grandsons treasure and use it forever.' Beyond its value as a record of place names, dates, and martial achievement, the inscription is also a vivid commentary on the campaign’s scale: the king’s direct leadership, the departure from Chengzhou, and the formalized tallying of captives and rewards point to a centrally organized expedition with troop numbering in the hundreds, rather than a small raiding party.

The inscription’s vocabulary and place names have been the subject of sustained philological attention, most fully addressed in Shouyang Jijin Shuzheng (An Evidential Study on the Shouyang Bronzes), edited by Luo Xinhui. Chengzhou, the point of royal departure, designates the Eastern capital of the Western Zhou in the area of present-day Luoyang. It was a locus of tribute from the four quarters and a center from which the court both administered resettled Yin populations and dispatched punitive expeditions, including those aimed at the Huai River frontier. The phrase fu zi requires particular explanation. In the Guoyu 'Zhouyu I' chapter, the term fu refers to the five concentric zones of control, where peoples of the periphery were to be brought into submission. In the gui’s inscription, the compound almost certainly signals southern barbaric groups. Because the verb fu can also bear the meanings 'to submit,' 'to subdue,' and 'to serve,' a circumspect English translation such as 'subdued groups' or 'southern subjects' best preserves the Zhou point of view without forcing modern ethnonyms upon the text.

The toponyms Yang X, Tong, and Yue anchor the campaign in the Huai River region. Ying has been linked to an ancient polity of the Yan lineage, tentatively placed west of modern Liu’an in Anhui. Tong remains contested, with proposals that range from the region of present-day Tongcheng to an area near today’s Hongze Lake in the Huai basin. Yue may be graphically related to the characters of yue and yu, and has been read as the strategic upper-Huai locality of Yulou. These identifications are provisional and serve to indicate the inscription’s southern focus and the court’s continuing efforts to stabilize that frontier through direct military action accompanied by the capture and interrogation of enemy combatants.

Of equal interest is the economy of reward and display that the text encodes. The inscription states that Bo Xian Fu received fifty jun of jin. The Eastern-Han dictionary Shuowen jiezi defines jun as thirty jin, so the royal grant would amount to, in traditional weight scale, 1500 jin, which equals to 750 kilograms. Although modern writers sometimes equate the character jin with 'gold,' Western Zhou inscriptions typically use jin in the broader sense of 'metal,' that is, bronze or smelting metal. A cautious translation therefore avoids specifying a precious metal in the absence of further evidence. The dedicatory lines that follow make explicit the moral economy that ties such generosity to pious commemoration: Bo Xian Fu converts the king’s reward into a prestigious ritual vessel, simultaneously proclaiming royal beneficence and perpetuating ancestral sacrifice within his lineage. The wish for 'ten thousand years,' with perpetual treasuring by sons and grandsons, situates the gui squarely within the Zhou ideal of hereditary remembrance.

The vessel also stands within a coherent material and epigraphic corpus. In Shangzhou qingtongqi mingwen ji tuxiang jicheng (A Collection of Inscriptions and Images of Shang and Zhou Archaic Bronzes), Shanghai, 2012, vol. 11, no. 5276, Wu Zhenfeng noted that the present gui is one of four Bo Xian Fu gui vessels. Two of the other gui were discussed by Li Xueqin in 'On the Bo Xian Fu gui from the Reign of King Li of the Western Zhou,' in Commemorative Essays for the Sixtieth Anniversary of Professor An Zuozhang’s Historical Studies, 2007; and the fourth gui is preserved in the China Cultural Relics Consultation Center. Stylistic and epigraphic comparison with excavated bronzes allows a first approximation of date. The shape and decoration of the present gui closely parallel those of the Mi Bo gui excavated in 1963 at Wangchuan, Lantian County, in Shaanxi, (Fig. 1) whose inscription has been placed in the reign of King Gong of Western Zhou, circa 922-900 BC. (Fig. 2) The present vessel also shares notable features with the Shi Shi gui, made in the first year of King Yi and found at Zhangjiapo in Chang’an, Shaanxi. Particularly interesting is the angular cloud-eye pattern on the foot, which is virtually identical to that on the Jian gui in the Palace Museum, Beijing, a vessel dated to the reign of King Xiao (variously dated by scholars either to 891–886 BC or 872–866 BC). All of this would suggest a production period of the current gui between the reigns of King Xiao and King Yi.

Textual arguments, however, complicate this stylistic picture and sharpen our sense of the campaign’s historical milieu. Li Xueqin has argued that the episode recorded on the present Bo Xian Fu gui corresponds to events mentioned on the Hu bell, currently in the National Palace Museum, Taipei, which speaks of a southern state’s fu-zi daring to encroach upon Zhou territory and of the king urging a punitive expedition. Furthermore, the toponyms Tong and Yue appear in inscriptions of the Liu Sheng xu and the E Hou Yu fangding, which Li argues a relation with the same location. On these grounds he locates the campaign in the reign of King Li. The tension between a stylistic window anchored by excavated comparison and a textual identification tied to specific inscriptions is instructive. It reminds us that the middle Western Zhou period—comprising the reigns of Zhao, Mu, Gong, Yi, Xiao, and Yi, that is, after King Kang and before King Li—remains unevenly illuminated by histories. In this context, bronze inscriptions are not merely illustrative; they are among the primary instruments by which historians reconstruct political geography, military practice, and the circulation of royal favor.

Set against this larger frame, the Bo Xian Fu gui assumes significance on three levels. First, it fixes a royal southern campaign in time, place, and action, from departure at Chengzhou to concrete acts of seizure, interrogation, and subjugation. Second, it records the court’s distributive economy, converting royal metal into a lineage vessel that binds favor to perpetual ancestral service. Third, it belongs in a collection of inscriptions on vessels that collectively document the Western Zhou’s southern frontier expedition and the evolving mechanisms of imperial integration. The present Bo Fu Xian gui is a compelling document of state power enacted at the periphery and commemorated at the ancestral altar.