EARLY WESTERN ZHOU DYNASTY, 11TH-10TH CENTURY BC

The strap and 'rivet' decoration on this vessel are suggestive of leather straps, and serves to divide the lower body into eight panels. The same decoration can be seen on a you of similar shape and date illustrated by J. Rawson in Western Zhou Ritual Bronzes from the Arthur M. Sackler Collections, vol. IIB, The Arthur M. Sackler Foundation, 1990, pp. 448-49, no. 67. The shape of the handle and the bottle-horn dragon terminals are also similar to those of the present vessel, as is the patina and type of encrustation. Three other related you with similar strapwork are also illustrated, pp. 490-91: one from Hei Bo, Gansu Lingtai Baicaopo, fig. 67.1; one in the Idemitsu Museum, fig. 67.2; and one in the Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Cambridge, fig. 67.3. See, also, the related you from the Sze Yuan Tang Collection, sold at Christie's New York, 16 September 2010, lot 885. For further discussion of the 'leather straps and rivets' motif, see d'Argencé, Bronze Vessels of Ancient China in the Avery Brundage Collection, 1977, p. 100.

The unusual narrow bands of segmented dragons joined by a single animal head decorating the present vessel are similar to those encircling the shoulder and cover of a you illustrated by Chen Peifan in Ancient Chinese Bronzes in the Shanghai Museum, London, 1995, p. 57, no. 30. The band encircling the foot on the Shanghai you, however, is cast with stylized dragons, and the terminals of the handle are cast with animal-heads with large, coiled horns. A fangyi illustrated by J. A. Pope et al. in The Freer Chinese Bronzes, vol. I, Washington, 1967, no. 38, also features this unusual segmented dragon decoration.