EARLY WESTERN ZHOU DYNASTY, 11TH-10TH CENTURY BC

A bronze hu and cover of this rare and distinctive form, but with a completely undecorated, plain surface and of larger size (41.1. cm.), is illustrated by J. F. So and E. C. Bunker in Traders and Raiders on China's Northern Frontier, Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC, 1995, p. 42, col. pl. 6, and p. 105, no. 19, where it is dated late 11th-early 10th century BC and attributed to north or northwest China. In her discussion of the vessel on p. 105, So notes that when the lid is inverted it can serve as a goblet on a low flared foot, and states, “When the two holes on the stem of the lid are aligned with the holes on the undecorated tubular handles at the base of the neck and the two holes on the flared foot ring, rope or leather strapping can pass through them and secure the container for travel.” So also notes that portable containers of this type are “forerunners of the variety of later vessels encased in imitation rope cages,” such as those illustrated ibid., pp. 106-7, nos. 20 and 21, and “reflect China’s increased traffic with non-Chinese patrons and its fascination with the exotic foreign ways of life of the northern tribes.” Another undecorated bronze hu and cover of this type, also of larger size (38.2 cm.), is illustrated by J. Rawson in The Bella and P. P. Chiu Collection of Ancient Chinese Bronzes, Hong Kong, 1988, pp. 76-7, no. 27.

A comparable bronze hu and cover decorated with an allover zigzag design of narrow leiwen bands, in the Hakutsuru Bijutsukan, Kobe, is illustrated by J. Rawson in Western Zhou Ritual Bronzes from the Arthur M. Sackler Collections, vol. IIB, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1990, p. 274, fig. 15.4, where it is dated early to middle Western Zhou. Another comparable bronze hu with allover zigzag design of leiwen bands, but lacking its cover, from the collection of Stephen Junkunc, III, was sold in Important Chinese Ceramics and Works of Art from an American Private Collection; Christie’s New York, 21 September 1995, lot 296. See, also, the bronze you and cover dated first half of middle Western Zhou, of similar form, but of larger size (45 cm), and with a swing handle with animal-head terminals, from Shaanxi Fufeng Liujiacun, illustrated by Rawson, op. cit., p. 481, fig. 64.5.

A bronze you vessel bearing a similar inscription reading Gui fu zuo lu yi X, dated to the early Western Zhou period and formerly part of Emperor Qianlong’s collection, is currently in the National Palace Museum, Taipei, and illustrated by Wang Jie in Xiqing xujian jiabian (Sequel to the Xiqing Gujian, Part 1), Beijing, 1793, vol. 8, no. 7. Both the present hu and the you in the Taipei Palace Museum are decorated with a band of bold kui dragons in silhouette.

A line drawing of a hu of this type with a similar band of birds around the neck, but lacking a cover, is illustrated in the Xiqing gujian, a 40-volume illustrated catalogue of ancient bronzes commissioned by the Qianlong Emperor. (Fig. 1) Compiled between 1749 and 1755, it includes some 1,529 bronze objects from the imperial collection.