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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.
Two similar pou, excavated along with three others of different pattern at Machang Village, Yang county, Shanxi province, are illustrated by Zhao Congcang, ed., Chengyang qingtongqi, Beijing, 2006, pp. 159-60, pp. 163-5, figs. 146-9, pls. 44-45 and 46. Another very similar pou of comparable size, dated 13th-12th century BC, is illustrated by Bagley, Shang Ritual Bronzes in the Arthur M. Sackler Collections, pp. 332-3, no. 56, where one in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (accession no. 14.24.1) is mentioned as being "virtually identical". A pou of smaller size (23.5 cm. across), cast with a similar taotie band on the lower body, is in the Qing Court Collection, Palace Museum, Beijing, and illustrated in The Complete Collection of Treasures of the Palace Museum - 27 - Bronze Ritual Vessels and Musical Instruments, Hong Kong, 2006, p. 123, no. 80. (Fig. 1)
Two similar pou, excavated along with three others of different pattern at Machang Village, Yang county, Shanxi province, are illustrated by Zhao Congcang, ed., Chengyang qingtongqi, Beijing, 2006, pp. 159-60, pp. 163-5, figs. 146-9, pls. 44-45 and 46. Another very similar pou of comparable size, dated 13th-12th century BC, is illustrated by Bagley, Shang Ritual Bronzes in the Arthur M. Sackler Collections, pp. 332-3, no. 56, where one in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (accession no. 14.24.1) is mentioned as being "virtually identical". A pou of smaller size (23.5 cm. across), cast with a similar taotie band on the lower body, is in the Qing Court Collection, Palace Museum, Beijing, and illustrated in The Complete Collection of Treasures of the Palace Museum - 27 - Bronze Ritual Vessels and Musical Instruments, Hong Kong, 2006, p. 123, no. 80. (Fig. 1)