Page 209 - Christies March 15 2017 Fujita Museum

The pou form was popular during the middle Shang and early Yinxu periods, circa 14th-13th
century BC. While most of the pou vessels were made withour covers and feature fat-cast
decoration, the Fujita Museum pou, with its high-relief decoration, massive size, and a ftted cover, is
one of the best of its type. It is also important to note that the Fujita Museum pou appears to be the
third largest example among all the published examples of pou.

A covered pou of similar form and with similar layout of decoration, but of smaller size (50 cm. high),
formerly in the collection of Fujita Tokujiro, is illustrated by Sueji Umehara in Nihon shucho shina kodo
seika (Selected Relics of Ancient Chinese Bronzes from Collections in Japan), vol. 1, Osaka, 1959, no.
11. The Fujita Tokujiro pou is decorated with backward-turned kui dragons on the shoulder whereas
the shoulder of the Fujita Museum pou is decorated with confronted kui dragons. The taotie on the
body of Fujita Tokujiro pou are depicted without bodies, as are those on the Fujita Museum pou. A pou
vessel in the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology is almost identical
to the Fujita Tokujiro pou but of even smaller size (45.7 cm. high). (See Horace H. F., Jayne, ‘The
Chinese Collections of The University Museum: A Handbook of the Principal Objects’, The University
Museum Bulletin, 1941, no. 9, pp. 2-3.) It is interesting to note that the Fujita Museum pou shares a
very similar distinctive silvery patina with the University of Pennsylvania pou. A set of one large pou
(47.6 cm. high) and a pair of smaller pou (34.2 and 33 cm. high) was found in the tomb of Fu Hao.
See Tomb of Lady Hao at Yinxu in Anyang, Beijing, 1980, col. pl. 5 and pl. 29, respectively. The Fujita
Tokujiro, the Fujita Musuem and the University of Pennsylvania pou may also be seen as coming from
the same set.

Another similar covered pou vessel of slightly smaller size (54 cm. high) from the J. Pierpont
Morgan Collection, now in The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, is illustrated in ‘Asian Art
at The Metropolitan Museum’, The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, summer 2015, no. 10. The
Metropolitan Museum pou shares the same layout of decoration with the Fujita pou, although some
details of decoration vary. The Metropolitan Museum pou has extra pairs of hooked-beaked birds
below bodies of kui dragons on the shoulder and extra pairs of small kui dragons below bodies of
taotie on the foot. The largest pou known is a covered pou vessel bearing a Ya Yi clan sign in the Nezu
Museum (62.4 cm. high), illustrated in Kanzo In Shu no seidoki, Tokyo, 2009, p. 25, no. 5. The Ya Yi
bronzes were reputedly from a royal Shang tomb at Xibeigang, Anyang city (see Sueji Umehara, op.
cit., no. 5). The imposing size of the Ya Yi pou does indicate an extraordinary high status, however its
surface decoration is fat-cast. The layout of decoration on the Ya Yi pou also difers from the other
large pou vessels cited above, as it includes two additional decorative bands, one along the rim of the
cover and one above the central taotie band on the body. Another covered pou (48 cm. high) is in the
Idemitsu Museum of Art, Tokyo, illustrated in Selected Masterpieces from the Idemitsu Collection, vol.
1, Tokyo, 1986, no. 164. The cover of Idemitsu Museum pou has a narrow band of decoration similar to
that on the cover of Ya Yi pou. A covered pou found in Huangcai township, Ningxiang county, Hunan
province (42.5 cm. high), now in the Hunan Provincial Museum Collection, is illustrated in ‘Min’ Fanglei
and Selected Bronze Vessels Unearthed from Hunan, Shanghai, 2015, pp. 138-147, no. 11. The Hunan
pou features a sculptural coiled dragon as the knob of the cover, a trait which can also be found on the
pou (60.7 cm. high) in the Tokyo National Museum, a gift of Mrs. Sakamoto Kiku, illustrated by Robert
W. Bagley in Shang Ritual Bronzes in the Arthur M. Sackler Collections, Cambridge, 1987, p. 108, fg. 136.

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