Wine Cups (Jue) (c. 1200 BCE): Art, History and Details

Wine Cups (Jue) (c. 1200 BCE) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

Wine and food played a major role in ritual offerings to the ancestral spirits and the Supreme Ancestor (Shangdi) performed by the Shang rulers in the state cult of ancestor worship. A variety of wine vessels—each type given a specific name—was cast to bear witness to the power and artistic vitality of this remote civilization. This example of a jue wine cup is for libations. Other major types of wine vessels include jia (wine warming vessel), fangyou (square wine container), and gu (beaker with a trumpeted mouth for pouring).

Object facts

• Title: Wine Cups (Jue)
• Date: c. 1200 BCE
• Culture: China, Shang dynasty (c. 1600–c. 1046 BCE), Anyang phase (c. 1250–1046 BCE)
• Type: Metalwork
• Technique: bronze
• Dimensions: Overall: 20.3 x 19.7 cm (8 x 7 3/4 in.)
• Collection: China - Shang Dynasty
• Department: Chinese Art
• Accession number: 1960.78

Collection credit

Norman O. Stone and Ella A. Stone Memorial Fund and Edward L. Whittemore Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Lee, Sherman E. “Year in Review| 1960.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 47, no. 10 (December 1960): 223–254.
• Cleveland Museum of Art, “Four Ritual Vases,” March 27, 1962, Cleveland Museum of Art Archives.
• Ho, Wai-Kam. “Shang and Chou Bronzes.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 51, no. 7 (September 1964): 175–187.

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.