LATE SHANG DYNASTY, 12TH – 11TH CENTURY BC

Gu, ritual vessels used for wine, are one of the most recognizable bronze forms from the Shang dynasty. First seen as slender beakers during the Erlitou period, circa 2000 to 1500 BC, these vessels eventually evolved into the elegant, trumpet-mouthed form of the late Anyang period, 12th-11th century BC. Gu were among the most important vessels used in Shang ritual practices, as evidenced by the inclusion of fifty-three such vessels in the tomb of Fu Hao.

The present gu is comparable in shape and decoration, both in motifs and arrangement, to those found at the Shang capital site near Anyang in Henan province, and to others in both museum and private collections. A similarly decorated gu is illustrated by Robert W. Bagley in Shang Ritual Bronzes in the Arthur M. Sackler Collection, Washington, D.C., 1987, p. 255, no. 38. Another comparable example was sold in Shang: Early Chinese Ritual Bronzes from the Daniel Shapiro Collection; Christie’s New York, 18 March 2021, lot 501. Only a handful of bronze vessels with the Yali clan signs have been recorded. A bronze jia dated to the late Shang dynasty and bearing a related Yali clan sign underneath its handle is in the collection of Tianjin Museum and illustrated in Tianjin bowuguan cang qingtong qi (Bronze Wares Collected by Tianjin Museum), Beijing, 2018, no. 18.