A BRONZE COCOON-FORM VESSEL, FU

WARRING STATES PERIOD (475-221 BC)

Details

A BRONZE COCOON-FORM VESSEL, FU
WARRING STATES PERIOD (475-221 BC)
The sides cast in relief with three broad bands of feather-like scrolls, and the rounded ends flat-cast with a large circular medallion with a plain center encircled by a narrow band of lozenges within a band of six large curved T-scrolls filled with geometric scroll and a narrow outer rope-twist border, the short waisted neck flanked on all sides by four taotie masks suspending loose ring handles, the whole raised on a rectangular foot with faceted corners, with greyish patina and mottled ferrous and malachite encrustation
11½ in. (29.2 cm.) long

Lot Essay

Although this form is familiar in painted grey pottery, it is rare to find an example in bronze. Of the few published, none has the same type of feather-like scroll decoration, but rather bands of small tightly coiled scrolls. A fu of this latter type is illustrated by Gisèle Croës in her catalogue for an exhibitin in Maastricht, March 1997, pp. 48-9, and another was sold in these rooms, 21 March 2002, lot 68. There are variations in the number and width of the plain bands on these two, as well as the arrangement of the taotie mask and ring handles.

According to Ma Cheng Yuan, during the Spring and Autumn period the hu develops into a vessel with an egg-shaped body and a short contracted neck, and that "this new form was very popular". See Ancient Chinese Bronzes, Hong Kong, pp. 197-8.

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