WARRING STATES PERIOD (475-221 BC)

A similar hu (but with a cover) is illustrated by J. So, Eastern Zhou Ritual Bronzes from the Arthur M. Sackler Collections, 1995, vol. III, no. 44, where the author, p. 257, describes how the motifs "were first cast in copper, then inserted into the mold and held in place with spacers". This technique was more effective in keeping the copper decoration in place than the more conventional method of hammering the copper into cast or incised depressions. Other similarly decorated hu lacking covers are in museum collections, including one in The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, accession number 29.100.545, formerly in the Havemeyer Collection; one in The Art Institute of Chicago, accession number 1928.143, formerly in the Lucy Maud Buckingham Collection; and one in the Fujii Yurinkan Museum, Kyoto, where it is registered as an Important Art Object by the Japanese government. Another hu with a cover was included in the exhibition Chinese Archaic Bronzes, Sculpture and Works of Art, J.J. Lally & Co., New York, June 1992, no. 24.