清十七/十八世紀 黃玉帶皮蒼龍教子紋觥

The bronze vessel from which the present vessel takes its inspiration is the gong, a ritual wine vessel. The bronze gong is one of the wine vessel types that appeared during the Anyang period of the Shang dynasty. These ritual wine vessels were often cast with fascinating zoomorphic imagery, and all basically share the same general shape, with some of rectangular form and some of more graceful oval section. In the present gong, the body has been left undecorated to enhence the smooth quality of the yellow jade. Compare to an archaistic white jade gong from the Qing dynasty, carved with a dragon and a phoenix, illustrated by Yang Boda, et. al., A Romance with Jade: From the De An Tang Collection, Beijing, 2004, p. 192, no. 127.