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Lot Essay
Pou seem to have been common in the transitional period between the Erligang and Anyang periods, but appear to have become less popular in the later Anyang period, and by the Zhou dynasty were no longer being made.
This exceptional pou is noteworthy for its particularly fine casting and impressively large size. A pou of slightly smaller size (26 cm. high) with similar cast decoration and similar large bovine masks cast in relief on the shoulder is illustrated by R.W. Bagley, Shang Ritual Bronzes in the Arthur M. Sackler Collections, Washington D.C. and Cambridge, 1987, p. 334, no. 57. Also illustrated, p. 337, fig. 57.3, is another very similar pou (26.5 cm. high) in the Museé Cernuschi, Paris. Further comparable pou of approximately the same size include the example illustrated in Shang Ritual Bronzes in the National Palace Museum Collection, Taipei, 1998, pp. 388-9, no. 65 (26.2 cm. high); one excavated in 1974 from the Cai Family Tomb in Chenggu county illustrated in Bronzes of Shang and Zhou Dynasties Unearthed in Shaanxi Province, Beijing, 1979, p. 107, no. 122 (25.5 cm. high); and the pou of slightly larger size (29.4 cm. high) excavated from Wulang Temple in Zhenggu county, Shaanxi province, illustrated in Zhongguo Qingtongqi Quanji - 4 - Shang(4), Beijing, 1998, p. 102, no. 105. The eyes of the taotie masks and dragons on this last example excavated in Zhenggu county are flat-cast and do not bulge out in relief as they do on the present pou and the other aforementioned examples.
This exceptional pou is noteworthy for its particularly fine casting and impressively large size. A pou of slightly smaller size (26 cm. high) with similar cast decoration and similar large bovine masks cast in relief on the shoulder is illustrated by R.W. Bagley, Shang Ritual Bronzes in the Arthur M. Sackler Collections, Washington D.C. and Cambridge, 1987, p. 334, no. 57. Also illustrated, p. 337, fig. 57.3, is another very similar pou (26.5 cm. high) in the Museé Cernuschi, Paris. Further comparable pou of approximately the same size include the example illustrated in Shang Ritual Bronzes in the National Palace Museum Collection, Taipei, 1998, pp. 388-9, no. 65 (26.2 cm. high); one excavated in 1974 from the Cai Family Tomb in Chenggu county illustrated in Bronzes of Shang and Zhou Dynasties Unearthed in Shaanxi Province, Beijing, 1979, p. 107, no. 122 (25.5 cm. high); and the pou of slightly larger size (29.4 cm. high) excavated from Wulang Temple in Zhenggu county, Shaanxi province, illustrated in Zhongguo Qingtongqi Quanji - 4 - Shang(4), Beijing, 1998, p. 102, no. 105. The eyes of the taotie masks and dragons on this last example excavated in Zhenggu county are flat-cast and do not bulge out in relief as they do on the present pou and the other aforementioned examples.