A grey cast bronze box-shaped vessel with a sloped lid. The entire piece is inscribed with detailed, swirling designs with the bottom-center having a goat-like inscription.
Photo © President and Fellows of Harvard College
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Photo © President and Fellows of Harvard College

A grey cast bronze box-shaped vessel stands upright on a grey background and faces diagonally to the right. It has a sloped lid that goes up and inward with a detailed knob at the very top. The foot reaches the vessel walls and goes straight down. The entire piece is inscribed with detailed, swirling designs with the bottom-center having a goat-like inscription. Along all of the piece’s edges are protruding thin, straight inscribed pieces.

Gallery Text

One of the earliest forms of Chinese writing is preserved in the simple inscriptions on bronze vessels from the late Shang period. Integrally cast into the bronzes — as opposed to being incised into the vessel after the metal had hardened — these marks were usually placed on the interior wall or floor of a vessel; the lids of covered vessels had matching marks on their undersides. Shang inscriptions tend to be highly pictographic, with many resembling birds, weapons, or humanoid figures. The inscriptions are not always translatable into modern Chinese characters, but most are identifiable as the names of either the aristocratic owners who commissioned the vessels, or the ancestors to whom they were dedicated. During the succeeding Zhou dynasty, written characters became more standardized and bronze inscriptions lengthened, often commemorating an event in which the person commissioning the bronze was involved. Bronze inscriptions were thus akin to historical texts worthy of preservation and study.

Identification and Creation

Object Number
1943.52.109.A-B
Title
'Fangyi' Covered Ritual Wine Vessel with 'Taotie' Decor
Classification
Vessels
Work Type
vessel
Date
12th century BCE
Places
Creation Place: East Asia, China
Period
Shang dynasty, c. 1600-c. 1050 BCE
Culture
Chinese
Persistent Link
https://hvrd.art/o/203988

Location

Location
Level 1, Room 1740, Early Chinese Art, Arts of Ancient China from the Neolithic to the Bronze Age
View this object's location on our interactive map

Physical Descriptions

Medium
Cast bronze with gray patina; with inscription cast on both the vessel floor and lid interior
Dimensions
H. 30.2 x W. 20.1 x D. 17.6 cm (11 7/8 x 7 15/16 x 6 15/16 in.)
Weight 6020.02 g (lid 2476.33 g, vessel 3543.69 g)
Inscriptions and Marks
  • inscription: two ideographs integrally cast on both the vessel floor and lid interior

Provenance

Recorded Ownership History
[C. T. Loo & Co., New York, March 17, 1942] sold; to Grenville L. Winthrop, New York (1942-1943), bequest; to Fogg Art Museum, 1943.

Acquisition and Rights

Credit Line
Harvard Art Museums/Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Bequest of Grenville L. Winthrop
Accession Year
1943
Object Number
1943.52.109.A-B
Division
Asian and Mediterranean Art
Contact
am_asianmediterranean@harvard.edu
Permissions

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Publication History

  • Dorothy W. Gillerman, ed., Grenville L. Winthrop: Retrospective for a Collector, exh. cat., Fogg Art Museum (Cambridge, 1969), no. 036, pp. 32-33
  • Chen Mengjia, Yin Zhou qingtongqi fenlei tulu (A corpus of Chinese bronzes in American Collections), Kyuko Shoin (Tokyo, Japan, 1977), A 639
  • Kristin A. Mortimer and William G. Klingelhofer, Harvard University Art Museums: A Guide to the Collections, Harvard University Art Museums and Abbeville Press (Cambridge and New York, 1986), no. 4, p. 14
  • Robert W. Bagley, Shang Ritual Bronzes in the Arthur M. Sackler Collections, Arthur M. Sackler Foundation and Arthur M. Sackler Museum (Washington, D.C. and Cambridge, Mass., 1987), p. 105, fig. 131; p. 131, fig. 198
  • Robert W. Bagley, Art and Archaeology of the Erligang Civilization, ed. Kyle Steinke and Dora C. Y. Ching, P. Y. and Kinmay W. Tang Center for East Asian Art (Princeton, NJ, 2014), pp. 20, 22, fig. 6

Exhibition History

  • S427: Ancient Chinese Bronzes and Jades, Harvard University Art Museums, Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Cambridge, 10/20/1985 - 04/30/2008
  • Re-View: S228-230 Arts of Asia, Harvard Art Museums/Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Cambridge, 05/31/2008 - 06/01/2013
  • 32Q: 1740 Early China I, Harvard Art Museums, 11/16/2014 - 01/01/2050

Subjects and Contexts

  • Collection Highlights
  • Google Art Project

Verification Level

This record has been reviewed by the curatorial staff but may be incomplete. Our records are frequently revised and enhanced. For more information please contact the Division of Asian and Mediterranean Art at am_asianmediterranean@harvard.edu