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Lot Essay
The inscription cast inside the cover and in the bottom of the vessel, Fu ding, can be translated as 'Father Ding.' This is an abbreviated dedicatory inscription that means 'dedicate this vessel to Father Ding.'
Oval-bodied you vessel first appeared in the late second phase of Yinxu (about 1200 BC) and became one of the most popular wine vessel types in the ritual vessel repertoire thereafter. A very similar you vessel with a somewhat clumsy animal mask was found in 2006 in Anyang and dated to the third phase of Yinxu, illustrated in Yinxu xinchutu qingtongqi (Ritual bronzes recently excavated in Yinxu), Kunming, 2008, p. 219, no. 105. A related you vessel with ring-shaped knop and deer-shaped animal mask was found from a later tomb in Anyang, which is dated to the fourth phase of Yinxu, illustrated in ibid, p. 305, no. 158. Another similar you is illustrated by R.W. Bagley, Shang Ritual Bronzes in the Arthur M. Sackler Collections, Arthur M. Sackler Foundation, Washington, DC,1987, pp. 388-89, no. 68, which is dated to the 11th century BC based on the style of the inscriptions. The present you therefore can be dated to the end of the late Shang period, 12th-11th century BC.
It is also interesting to note that the geometric design on the present you, which is often mistakenly read as leiwen, differs from leiwen by its arrangement in a regular pattern of triangles and rhombi. As noted by Bagley, this design is developed from the early Anyang designs of scorpions, as can been see on the covered hu vessel and ladle in the collection of the Museum of East Asian Art, Cologne, illustrated in ibid, pp. 390-391.
Oval-bodied you vessel first appeared in the late second phase of Yinxu (about 1200 BC) and became one of the most popular wine vessel types in the ritual vessel repertoire thereafter. A very similar you vessel with a somewhat clumsy animal mask was found in 2006 in Anyang and dated to the third phase of Yinxu, illustrated in Yinxu xinchutu qingtongqi (Ritual bronzes recently excavated in Yinxu), Kunming, 2008, p. 219, no. 105. A related you vessel with ring-shaped knop and deer-shaped animal mask was found from a later tomb in Anyang, which is dated to the fourth phase of Yinxu, illustrated in ibid, p. 305, no. 158. Another similar you is illustrated by R.W. Bagley, Shang Ritual Bronzes in the Arthur M. Sackler Collections, Arthur M. Sackler Foundation, Washington, DC,1987, pp. 388-89, no. 68, which is dated to the 11th century BC based on the style of the inscriptions. The present you therefore can be dated to the end of the late Shang period, 12th-11th century BC.
It is also interesting to note that the geometric design on the present you, which is often mistakenly read as leiwen, differs from leiwen by its arrangement in a regular pattern of triangles and rhombi. As noted by Bagley, this design is developed from the early Anyang designs of scorpions, as can been see on the covered hu vessel and ladle in the collection of the Museum of East Asian Art, Cologne, illustrated in ibid, pp. 390-391.