AN ARCHAIC BRONZE WINE VESSEL, YOU , WITH DRAGON PATTERN AND INSCRIPTION（BO YANG YOU）
Ref. no.:
1511
Age:
Late Phase Of Early Western Zhou c.10th Century B.C.
Provenance:
Collection of the Wang Family, Taipei, Taiwan
Dimensions
21. x 24.5 cm
Description:
The compressed pear-shaped body in elliptical cross section raising from a splayed pedestal foot, surmounted by a domed cover with a rounded rectangular grip on the top surrounded by a band of confronted kui -dragons, two horn raising from both ends of the major axis of the cover, the body flanked by a lateral swing handle fully decorated on its outer surface with a band of S-shaped dragons in relief, with each of its ends cast with a head of tapir, the neck of the body cast with a border comprising a beast head in high relief at centre of each side flanked by a pair of S-shaped dragons with backward-turned heads, all reserved on a neat spiral leiwen ground, in an overall mottled light green patina, the interior of the cover cast with a two-row inscription of ten characters that reads zuo zong bao zun yi wan nian sun zi yong , which literally means [it shall be] made as a ritual vessel for ancestral worship, [and it shall be] treasured by my sons and grandsons forever, the interior of the body cast with an inscription of five characters that reads Bo Yang zuo bao yi , meaning Boyang made this ritual vessel.
Bronze you is a type of wine containing vessel mostly used by members of the royal family and the ruling aristocrats during the late Shang and early Western Zhou periods in ritual ceremonies. An archaeological sample with similar shape and pattern to this piece is the Zuo Lv Yi You（76FYM20:7）, found in the excavation of Tomb M20, Yuntang Village, Fufeng, Shaanxi in 1976, illustrated in Shaanxi Provincial Institute of Archaeology et al ., eds., Shaanxi chu tu shang zhou qing tong qi （Bronzes of Shang and Zhou Dynasties Unearthed in Shaanxi Province）, 1980, vol.3, p.79, no.70. Also see Cao Wei ed., Zhouyuan chu tu qing tong qi (Bronzes from Zhouyuan), 2005, vol.7, pp.1474-1478.
PROVENANCE
Collection of the Wang Family, Taipei, Taiwan
LITERATURE
Wu Zhenfeng, Shang Zhou qing tong qi ming wen ji tu xiang ji chen g（Corpus of Inscriptions and Images of Bronzes from the Shang & Zhou Dynasties）, 2012, vol. 24, p190, no.13266.