商 青銅爵|Wine warmer (Jue)

Unknown

ca. 16th century BCE · Bronze · Asian Art

Every ancient Chinese bronze thus far discovered was cast using a complex pottery section-mold—a Chinese invention. But this vessel’s shape—angular, with a thin-walled body, a rim that appears “folded over,” and a “strap” handle—implies an earlier hammered sheet-metal mode of manufacture that might have been introduced from western Asia, where bronze metallurgy developed two thousand years before it appeared in China.

Artist

Unknown

Date

ca. 16th century BCE

Medium

Bronze

Culture

China

Department

Asian Art

Credit line

Purchase, Bequest of Dorothy Graham Bennett, 2003