About This Artwork

China

Tripod Wine Vessel (Jia), Shang dynasty (c. 1600-c. 1050 B.C.), 12th/11th c. B.C.

Bronze
51.5 x 23.5 cm (20 1/4 x 9 1/4 in.)
Lucy Maud Buckingham Collection, 1926.1599

The tautly elegant form and precise casting of animal imagery date this ritual vessel to the Shang, China's earliest dynasty to be verified by archaeological excavations. The Shang royal family commissioned such vessels for ceremonies of ancestor worship and later buried them in tombs. Cast from a mold assembly of finely carved, fired, and interlocked pieces of clay, this tripod exhibits extraordinary artistic imagination and technical cooperation by potters and metallurgists. Two tiers of monster masks encircle its flared bowl. Elongated versions of these masks, which may also be seen as paired serpents, descend the tapered legs. A bovine head with sculpted horns crowns the strap handle. Such vessels are the supreme artistic achievement of China's bronze age.

Exhibition, Publication and Ownership Histories

Publication History

Archaic Chinese Bronzes of the Shang, Chou, and Han Periods in the Collections of Mr. Parish-Watson, notes by Berthold Laufer (New York: Parish-Watson & Co., 1922), p. 6, cat. 2, pl. 2 (ill).

C. F. Kelley and D.K. Wilson, “Bronzes Recently Acquired for the Buckingham Collection,” Bulletin of the Art Institute of Chicago 21 (November-December 1927), pp. 98-99, 114-116.

Suiji Umehara, Shina-kodo Seikwa (Osaka: Yamanaka and Co., 1933), pt. 1, vol. 1, pl. 68.

Florance Waterbury, Early Chinese Symbols and Literature: Vestiges and Speculations (New York, 1942), pl. 75.

Charles Fabens Kelley and Ch’en Meng-chia, Chinese Bronzes from the Buckingham Collection (Chicago: The Art Institute of Chicago/ Lakeside Press, 1946), p. 26, 148, pl. 8.

Chen Mengjia, In Shu seidoki bunrui zuroku: A Corpus of Chinese Bronzes in American Collections, ed. Matsumaru Michio (Tokyo:Kyoku Shuin, 1977), vol. 1 p. 308, cat. A308; vol. 2, p. 599 (ill). Japanese version of Mei diguo zhuyi jieliao de wo guo (Beijing, Kexue Chubanshe, 1962), based on unpublished manuscript by Chen Mengjia, Yin Zhou qingtongqi fenlei tulu.

Minao Hayashi, In Shu jidai seidoki no kenkyu (In Shu jidai seidoki soran ichi) [Conspectus of Yin and Zhou Bronzes], 1, part 2 (Tokyo: Yoshikawa Kobunkan, 1984), p.196, pl. 60.

Elinor Pearlstein and James T. Ulak, Asian Art in the Art Institute of Chicago (The Art Institute of Chicago, 1993), pp. 16-17 (ill.).

Matsumaru Michio, In Shu seidoki bunrui zuroku: A Corpus of Chinese Bronzes in American Collections (Tokyo: Kyoku shuin, 1977), p. 64, 599.

Ownership History

Purchased by Kate Buckingham from Parish-Watson, New York, 1922; given by her to the Art Institute, 1926.