Cup

These four vessels [B60 B1080, B60 B30+, B60 B1079 and B60 B720] and those of the following two plates illustrate a new pictorial and, at times, almost anecdotal trend which originated in northwestern China towards the last decades of the 6th century BCE and lasted well into the Han dynasty. Imaginative, refreshing and technically daring as it is, this trend is the swan song of an art that had been self-sufficient for a thousand years. With few exceptions, shapes are plain, if not pedestrian. The now completely secularized metal is used as a mere background for designs that are for the most part borrowed from other media, such as painting, and are no longer adapted to the anatomy of the containers.
With the hu (B60B974), the cup belongs to a group of vessels which were first, if not exclusively, manufactured by workshops located in southern Shanxi or northern Henan. The decor. probably filled at one time with some kind of organic substance, appears now in intaglio. The collar and foot bands display diamond shapes with elongated apexes and the lower belly band a row of lappets inscribed with two variants of legless but long-necked, long-beaked and crested birds which are alternately confronted or addorsed. The main band, the most spectacular one, shows an array of animal and human figures, some big, some small, some fairly naturalistic, some fantastic, but all in profile and frequently engaged in combat. Regardless of the message they conveyed to the Chinese of the period. such violent scenes were obviously inspired by some of the main themes in the art or the Asian Steppes. The outer face of the annular handles are adorned by a row of cowries in flat relief between two bands or incised hatching.