A LARGE BRONZE RITUAL POURING VESSEL, YI

WESTERN ZHOU DYNASTY, 9TH-8TH CENTURY BC

细节

A LARGE BRONZE RITUAL POURING VESSEL, YI
WESTERN ZHOU DYNASTY, 9TH-8TH CENTURY BC
Raised on four flat legs cast as compressed dragons with clawed feet, the sides horizontally ribbed below a band of angular scroll flat-cast below the rim, the loop handle formed by the arched body of a horned dragon biting the rim in its jaws, with a fifteen-character inscription cast in the bottom of the interior, with mottled patina and some pale azurite encrustation on the interior
13 5/8 in. (34.5 cm.) long, cloth stand

来源

Mathias Komor, New York, 1956.

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拍品专文

The yi was a water vessel that was often used in conjunction with a pan for the ritual washing of hands, which is confirmed by the two having been found together in tombs, usually with the yi in the pan. It was a late Western Zhou adaptation of the gong and the he, and continued into the Eastern Zhou period.

A yi of similar proportions and raised on four similar flat dragon-form legs, but of smaller size (26.5 cm. long) and cast below the rim with a band of stylized dragons as opposed to the angular scroll seen on the current vessel, is in the Shanghai Museum and illustrated in Zhongguo Qingtongqi Quanji - 6 - Xi Zhou (2), Beijing, 1997, p. 143, no. 147, where it is dated late Western Zhou.

The inscription cast on the interior of the present yi may be translated, '[] [] of the Fu Family made this precious object. Their descendents for the next ten thousand years will cherish and enjoy it forever.'