Bronze ceremonial wine vessel (Zun)

A heavily cast bronze vessel of wide beaker form, the body divided into four horizontal registers.  The bottom section flares outward gently, terminating in a low straight rim that forms the foot of the vessel.  A band of relief decoration incorporating two bold taotie masks encircles this section.  The masks have broad noses, bulging eyes, C-shaped horns and hooked fangs. A similar decorative band encircles the wider central section.  Just above it is a narrow band that features four pairs of confronting archaistic birds.  The birds have plumed heads with a bulging eye and a hooked beak, upturned wings, long curled tail feathers and hooked claws. All three lower bands are divided into four sections by prominent vertical flanges that have L-shaped incisions. The upper section flares outward into a trumpet mouth and is cast with a band of eight pointed blades, each consisting of confronting birds with exaggerated tail feathers. A six-character dedicatory pictogram inside the foot reads: […] zuo wen zun yi […], which can be translated as: ‘X had this ornamented (or precious) vessel made.’  The strong patina on the vessel has areas of malachite and ruby encrustation.

•  The zun shape, first seen in the second half of the Anyang phase, is a development of the slender gu beaker and was used in rituals to serve wine. Lefebvre d’Argencé dates a comparable zun of similar proportions and decoration in the Avery Brundage collection to the late Shang dynasty, 13th - 11th century BC.1   A similar zun with two registers of taotie masks from the Lidow collection was included in the 1976 exhibition Ancient Ritual Bronzes of China at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.2   Kuwayama dates this vessel to the early Western Zhou dynasty.  A Shang dynasty zun with a slightly more sinuous profile and with two bands of taotie masks on a plain background, but lacking the two upper bands of decoration, is in the Sze Hong collection, exhibited at the Denver Museum of Art.3   

1. Lefebvre d’Argencé, R.-Y. Bronze Vessels of Ancient China in the Avery Brundage Collection, Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, 1977, plate XII, pp. 40-1
2. Kuwayama, G. Ancient Ritual Bronzes of China, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1976,
3. White, J.M. and Otsuka, R.Y. Pathways to the Afterlife, Early Chinese Art from the Sze Hong Collection Denver Art Museum, 1993, no. 19, pp. 50-1