Page 124 - Deydier VOL.2 Meiyintang Collection of Chinese Bronses

176. Ritual bronze wine or water vessel hu
Shang dynasty, Yinxu period, circa 13 - 11 centuries bc.
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商代殷墟時期青銅壺
Height: 30.8 cm

Archaic bronze wine or water vessel hu with a chubby, Provenance:
pear-shaped oval body with small lug handles on each of ▪ Galerie Christian Deydier, Paris, France.
its upper sides and supported on a high, conical, hollow
foot. Both sides of the vessel’s body are decorated with two Similar examples:
large taotie masks set one above the other and separated ▪ A very similar hu with protuberant eyebrows now in
by a narrow, undecorated band. Each taotie mask is cast the Brundage Collection, the Asian Art Museum of
with bulging round eyes, upwardly curling, sharply tipped San Francisco, is illustrated by Lefebvre d’Argencé
ears, long, thick eyebrows, and a protruding pug nose with R.Y., Bronze Vessels of Ancient China in the Avery
small round double-circle nostrils, all on a background of Brundage Collection, San Francisco 1977, p. 44 - 45,
leiwen. The small lug handles near the vessel’s top are no. B60 B973.
decorated with incised taotie masks, while the vessel’s ▪ Another hu, in the British Museum, is illustrated
high, conical, hollow foot is decorated with a “monocular” in Zhongguo Qingtongqi Quanji, Vol. 4 - Shang 4,
mythical-bird-like pattern. Beijing 1997, p. 143, no. 147.
The vessel has an olive-green patina with malachite Notes:
incrustations.
▪ In Chinese, the term hu refers to vases or jars of a fairly
large size that come in various shapes, which, despite
their differences in shape, all share a certain number of
characteristics, including a bulbous body that recedes
near its neck, a fairly long neck and a round foot or a
rectangular foot with rounded corners. Sometimes hu
have covers and small lateral handles and rings, which
is not the case in the earliest Shang hu, such as the
present vessel.
▪ The names that appear in the inscriptions on some
such vessels differ according to shape, with such
vessels sometimes being referred to either as hu, ping,
fu, fang or chung. The most common type of hu from
the Spring and Autumn period onwards was the bianhu
or flattened-egg-shaped-like vessel with cover. (See
Wang Tao, Bronzes from the Meiyintang Collection,
p. 112-113, no. 49.)
▪ The exact use of these vessels seems to have varied, with
the Yili (Book of Rites) mentioning that they were used
to hold alcoholic beverages, while certain inscriptions
cast into such bronzes, as well as some classical texts,
mention that they were used to hold water.
▪ First appearing during the Yinxu period of the Shang
dynasty, hu became very popular from the end of the
Zhou dynasty, up to and throughout the Han dynasty.

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