Square Wine Container (Fangyou) (c. 1250–1046 BCE): Art, History and Details

Square Wine Container (Fangyou) (c. 1250–1046 BCE) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

From the finely proportioned body to the elaborate decoration cast with great precision, this ritual wine vessel displays the artistic refinement and technical virtuosity that marked the full blossoming of late Shang bronze art. The dramatic contrast of the crested birds (kuifeng) against the dense background of spiral patterns (leiwen) gives the vessel a new force, clarity, and intense vitality. The distinctive square body also places it as a rare and important type among the more usual round or ovoid types.

Object facts

• Title: Square Wine Container (Fangyou)
• Date: c. 1250–1046 BCE
• Culture: China, Henan province, probably Anyang, Shang dynasty (c. 1600–c. 1046 BCE), Anyang phase (c. 1250–1046 BCE)
• Type: Metalwork
• Technique: bronze
• Dimensions: Overall: 26.7 x 13.4 cm (10 1/2 x 5 1/4 in.)
• Collection: China - Shang Dynasty
• Department: Chinese Art
• Accession number: 1963.103

A detail from the museum

The bird motif decoration of this bronze is uncommon; more often these bronzes are decorated with a combination of birds and dragons.

Collection credit

John L. Severance Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Huang Jun [Huang Chün] 黄濬. Ye zhong pian yu [鄴中片羽 = An-yang antiquities]. Beiping: Zunguzhai 尊古齋, 1935.
• Rong, Geng [Jung Keng] 容庚. Shang Zhou yi qi tong kao [商周彝器通考 = The Bronzes of Shang and Chou]. Beiping: Harvard-Yenching Institute 哈佛燕京學社, 1941.
• Mizuno, Seiichi 水野清一. In Shū seidōki to tama 殷周青銅器と玉. Tōkyō: Nihon Keizai Shinbunsha 日本経済新聞社, 1959.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.