Masterpieces of Oriental Art. 18. The Hsin Po Kuei, An Early Chinese Bronze Ritual Vessel

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This beautiful vessel is in the collection of Mrs. B. Z. Seligman of London. It measures 7 inches in height and 9⅜ inches in width across the handles. The merit of the design lies in its dignity and fine simplicity of form, rather than in the superficial decoration. Indeed, one has here a foretaste of that Chinese genius for plastic form in vessels which attained its full manifestation some 2,000 years later in the ceramic triumphs of the Sung Dynasty. The beauty of the bronze is enhanced in modern eyes by the fine, smooth, blue-green patina that covers the surface. The shape and decoration are characteristic of the First Phase of archaic bronze design, associated with the Shang-Yin and Early Chou periods, the style and content of the inscription favouring the latter of these two alternatives and suggesting a date in the late eleventh or the tenth century b.c. The vessel was publicly shown for the first time at the Exhibition of Early Chinese Bronzes held by the Oriental Ceramic Society in London last autumn.