A BRONZE RITUAL FOOD VESSEL, YU

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

Details

A BRONZE RITUAL FOOD VESSEL, YU
EARLY WESTERN ZHOU DYNASTY, 11TH/10TH CENTURY BC
The deep sides cast with a wide diamond-and boss band below a narrow band of dissolved dragons and three small animal masks, raised on a tall flared foot cast with three pairs of addorsed birds with backward-turned heads separated by narrow flanges, with brownish patina and some malachite encrustation
11 1/8in. (28. 2cm.) diam.

Exhibited

Los Angeles, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Ancient Ritual Bronzes of China, 3 February-25 April 1976, no. 7.

Lot Essay

This vessel is similar to an example excavated from Shaanxi Liquan Xian illustrated by R.W. Bagley, Shang Ritual Bronzes in the Arthur M. Sackler Collections, Arthur M. Sackler Foundation, 1987, p. 506, fig. 98.3, where the author notes that "yu with diamond-and-boss decoration" were "probably an invention of Anyang foundries" and continued to be fashionable into the Zhou dynasty. He further notes that many of the yu excavated from Shaanxi have diamond-and-boss decoration.

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