Page 46 - Sotheby's NYC September 20 2022 Forging An Empire Bronzes

t is rare to find a you flanked by a pair of rhinoceros heads, and even rarer to find one cast with
the motif of confronting birds; the combination of both makes this you exceptional. This unusual
Ivessel bears two three-character inscriptions, one to the interior of the vessel, the other to the
interior of the lid, indicating that the vessel was dedicated to Father Ding. The pictogram identifies the
clan, to which the owner of this vessel belonged. This highly graphical clan sign does not appear to be
associated with a modern Chinese character.

Only two other you of this confronting-bird design appear to be published. A taller you with an eight-
character inscription with decorative bands closely related to this vessel, but lacking the leiwen pattern
on the foot, of elongated form and the handle with animal masks of different shape, was sold in our
London rooms, 11th June 1996, lot 117. See also the Ge Fu Gui You 戈父癸卣, with decorations on the lid
and the shoulder similar to the present piece, but with an extra pair of birds on each side, excavated in
1991 from Gaojiabu, Jingyang county, Shaanxi province, now in the Jingyang Museum, Shaanxi province,
illustrated in Li Xixing, The Shaanxi Bronzes, Xi’an, 1994, pl. 155.

A few you vessels with rhinoceros-head terminals on the handle are in museum collections. Two of
them are in the Palace Museum, Beijing: the Si Si Yang Qi You 四祀弋阝其卣, a large and important
you excavated at Anyang, Henan province, with a 42-character long inscription on the base recording
that the vessel was made in the 4th year of the last king of the Shang dynasty, the lid, handle and foot
decorated with leiwen and the shoulder with a band of taotie pattern, illustrated in Gugong qingtong
qi / Bronzes in the Palace Museum, Beijing, 1999, pl. 65; and the Dao Fu Xin You 刀父辛卣 (accession
no. gu-77010), from the Qing Court Collection, included in Yan Yiping, Jinwen zongji [Corpus of Bronze
Inscriptions], Taipei, 1983, no. 5169. Compare a further you from the Avery Brundage Collection in the
Asian Art Museum, San Francisco (accession no. B60B82), where the lid and shoulder are decorated
with a taotie frieze composed of triple-tiered scrolls, illustrated in René-Yvon Lefebvre D’Argencé, Bronze
Vessels of Ancient China in the Avery Brundage Collection, San Francisco, 1977, pl. XXXV (right).