Page 64 - Deydier UNDERSTANDING CHINESE ARCHAIC BRONZES

just over the area where the long spout extends from the vessel’s body
and a semi-circular handle cast on one of its sides (See photo on page
63). The morphology of the jue’s 爵 body changes slightly in subsequent
periods.

In its primitive form, during the Erlitou 二里頭 period, the jue 爵 is
usually small in size and has a very simple shape. Its body is thinly
cast and oval with a flat bottom, a semi-circular handle and three short
triangular legs. Jue 爵 of this period are usually without decoration,
but sometimes they have just a frieze of small bosses on their bodies.
Another characteristic of these most early pieces is the absence of knobs,
with only small projections located at the pouring-spout’s originating
point, a harbinger of their future development.

At the beginning of the Shang 商 dynasty, during the Erligang 二里
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岡 period (17 /16 – 14 centuries B.C.) the morphology of the jue爵
remains simple. The vessel is cast with a flat bottom, a narrow pouring
spout, and three triangular legs (See photo on page 162). Some rare
examples are either tetrapod (one example from the L. Jacob Collection
is now in the Guimet Museum, Paris. See pages 51-53 of Maud Girard-
Geslan, Bronzes Archaïques De Chine.) or have only a single central
knob on a triangular protuberance just over the section of the spout
where it extends from the vessel’s body. Usually the vessel is decorated
with a small frieze cast with a primitive taotie 饕餮 mask (See drawing
on page 110).

During the Yinxu 殷墟 period (second part of the Shang 商 dynasty,
circa 14 – 12 /11 centuries B.C.), a period often called the Anyang
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安陽 period, after its location in modern-day Anyang 安陽, Henan
河南 province, the jue 爵 becomes extremely popular and is always
used together with a gu 觚 vessel, to form a basic set used in Shang 商
rituals. The jue’s 爵 shape changes slightly, its body becomes rounder,
its bottom is either rounded or curved, rarely flat, its pouring spout is
dumpy and shorter and its size may vary considerably, with some jue爵
extremely tall, while others are of square shape, and still others have a
cover. The jue 爵 vessel disappears after the beginning of the Western
Zhou西周 dynasty, as libations with fermented beverages become less
common.

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Jue, Xia dynasty, Erlitou culture (circa 19 – 17 /16 centuries B.C.)
Height: 21 cm, length: 18.6 cm – Meiyintang Collection n° 2.
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