AN ARCHAIC BRONZE RITUAL WINE VESSEL, GU LATE SHANG DYNASTY

of slender form rising from a spreading hollow base to a trumpet mouth, the neck cast with four tapering cicada blades rising above two pairs of confronted kui dragons, the central bulb and foot crisply cast with taotie masks set with raised eyes and brows divided by notched flanges, with two raised ribs above a band of two pairs of confronted beasts with hooked beaks, the leiwen spiral ground finely cast, the interior of the foot with a pictogram reading ge, the bronze with a smooth olive patina to the decorated surfaces, some malachite encrustration inside the vessel 

Collection of the Yamanaka family, Kyoto, 1930s.
A private old Japanese collection, Tokyo.
Collection of Ando, Tokyo.

The present gu vessel is notable for its fine casting and excellent resonant qualities indicating bronze of a high quality. The inside wall of the foot is cast with a single pictogram of a dagger cutting off an ear which may be represented as the character ge, referring to the ancient Chinese practice of collecting the left ears of enemies fallen in battle for counting merit. This clan name is also recorded in Shuowen jiezi [Explaining and analysing characters] compiled by Xu Shen in the 2nd century A.D.

Excavations in 1991 of Tomb M21 in Hougang, Anyang, Henan unearthed a bronze jue also bearing the clan insignia, illustrated in Kaogu [Archaeology], Beijing, 1993, vol. 10, pls. 26.4 and 29.5, pp. 895-6. A bronze gu with the same clan insignia and related design is in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (accession number 49.135.11). 

Compare also a bronze gu with very similar decoration and design, excavated from a Shang dynasty tomb in Mangzhang, Luoshan, Xinyang, Henan in 1980, illustrated in Institute of Archaeology CASS, Zhongguo qingtong qi quanji [Complete collection of bronze wares in China], Beijing, 1993-8, vol. 4, no. 68, p. 66. Another similar bronze gu (R1046, HPKM2046:5) was unearthed in the excavation of Tomb M2046 in Xibeigang, Anyang, Henan during the Republican period, and was illustrated in Studies of the bronze ku-beaker excavated from Hsiao Tún & Hou Chia Chuang, Taipei, 1964, pl. 32.