AN ARCHAIC BRONZE POURING VESSEL, YI

Details

AN ARCHAIC BRONZE POURING VESSEL, YI
LATE WESTERN ZHOU DYNASTY

The sides cast with shallow grooves below a band of scales or simplified cicadas flat-cast at the rim, the C-scroll handle cast with a variation of this pattern terminating at the rim in a dragon head, raised on four supports, the front two cast as the head of an animal surmounting a leg and clawed foot, the two back supports cast as the hindquarters and back legs of the beast, with a smooth gray and pale green patina (some restoration)
12in. (30.5cm.) long

Lot Essay

A yi similar to the present example but with a band of hooked C-scrolls below the rim is illustrated in the Yenching Journal of Chinese Studies, The Bronzes of Shang and Chou, vol. II, China, 1941, p. 449, no. 852. Rubbings of similar bands of scales are illustrated by Minao Hayashi, Studies of Yin and Zhou Bronze Decoration, vol. II, Tokyo, 1986, p. 355