LATE SHANG DYNASTY, ANYANG, 12TH CENTURY BC

Fangyi, which were wine containers, appear to have been one of the most prized of ritual vessels of the Shang dynasty, as thay have been found in fewer and more sumptuous tombs than more common shapes such as gu, jue and ding. In Ancient Chinese and Ordos Bronzes, p. 92, J. Rawson and E. Bunker, in their discussion of the fangyi, note that during the Shang dynasty vessels of this rare type were used in pairs, as seen in the tomb of Fu Hao, illustrated in Tomb of Lady Hao at Yinxu in Anyang, Beijing, 1980, pls. XVIII (2) and XIX (1 and 2). Sets of ritual bronzes found in several other tombs at Anyang include a single fangyi. The most similar of these fangyi is the one found in 1983 in Tomb M633 at Dasikong, Anyang, illustrated in Ritual Bronzes Recently Excavated in Yinxu, Yinxu, 2008, pp. 108-109 and pp. 92-93, pl. 24, illustrating the set of bronzes, which includes the fangyi, two jue, two gu, two ding, a gui and a pou. The shape of the Fu Hao and Dasikong fangyi and the decoration and its placement are similar to that of the present vessel. Another similarly decorated fangyi of similar form, from the collection of Mrs. Walter Sedgwick, is illustrated by W. Watson, Ancient Chinese Bronzes, London, 1962, pl. 18a. See, also, the fangyi illustrated by M. Hearn, Ancient Chinese Art: The Ernest Erickson Collection in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1987, pp. 28-29. On all of the vessels the motifs are similar, but not identical.