WARRING STATES PERIOD, 4TH CENTURY BC

The fanglei or "square lei" is one of the rarest vessel types among the Eastern Zhou ritual paraphernalia. A Warring States fanglei of very similar form, but decorated with rectangular panels enclosing dense dragon pattern, was found in Sanmenxia City, Henan province, and is illustrated in Zhongguo wenwu jinghua daquan: Qingtong juan (Compendium of Treasures of Chinese Cultural Relics: Archaic Bronzes), Hong Kong, 1994, p. 247, no. 886. A Warring States inlaid fanglei with masks suspending ring handles in the Miho Museum is illustrated in Catalogue of the Miho Museum (The South Wing), 1997, pp. 184-5, no. 87. Compare, also, a pair of fanglei of similar form found in the early Warring States tomb of Zenghou Yi (Marquis Yi of the Zeng State) together with fitted bronze jian basins, illustrated in Zhongguo qingtongqi quanji (The Complete Collection of Chinese Bronzes), Beijing, 1998, vol. 10, pp. 130-33. The same pair is illustrated again by F. J. Zhang and J. Xu in Phoenix Kingdoms: The Last Splendor of China’s Bronze Age, San Francisco, 2022, pp. 120-21, no. 51, where another bronze square vessel and cover, one of a pair from the tomb of the Marquis Yi of Zeng, is illustrated, p. 123, fig. 1, which has a diagonal grid pattern that would have been inlaid turquoise and silver. This pair of square vessels, of larger size (47.5 cm. high) than the current vessel, bear inscriptions on their handles and covers indicating they were intended as water containers used for bathing by Marquis Bing of Zeng, presumably a successor of Marquis Yi.

The geometric design filled with malachite inlay found on the current vessel is a fine example of an iconic Warring States period ornamentation style. Two fanghu vessels with a similar design of a diagonal grid framing lozenge-shaped panels that would have originally contained inlay, one in the Los Angeles County Museum and the other in the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, are illustrated by Jenny So, in Eastern Zhou Bronzes from the Arthur M. Sackler Collections, vol. III, New York, 1995, pp. 62-63, figs. 110 and 112, respectively.