yan vase
The vases yan, whose shape derives from Neolithic ceramics, were used to steam food. The hollow feet contained the water, while the tank, separated from them by a mobile openwork plate, was intended to receive the food. THE yan, sometimes treated as two separate and superimposable elements, lasted until the Han period (206 BC – 220).
The three feet here take the form of masks of taotie, a fantastic creature whose presence is recurrent on Chinese archaic bronzes. They are treated with a strong relief and surmounted by horns, the presence of which has been usual since the end of the Shang (around 1500 – around 1050 BC), when the representations of taotie are often added attributes from real animals. The body is simply decorated with a horizontal band made up of square spirals, called leiwen in Chinese, and three other masks of taotie reduced to their simplest expression. These motifs recall the persistence, at the beginning of the Western Zhou (circa 1050 – 771 BC), of a decorative vocabulary developed under the Shang. The twisted handles evoke, for their part, possible models in basketry.
Cartel:
Vase yan
Western Zhou (c. 1050 – 771 BC), XIe-Xe century BC, China
Bronze
H.39,7 cm; D.25,4cm
MC 9841
Gift of the Antoni Laurent Foundation and the Society of Friends of the Cernuschi Museum, 1990
Photo credit :
© Paris Museums / Cernuschi Museum
 Anonymous, Vase for steaming yan (Usage name), -1050, dark patina. Cernuschi Museum, Museum of Asian Arts of the City of Paris. |
 Anonymous, Vase for steaming yan (Usage name), -1050, dark patina. Cernuschi Museum, Museum of Asian Arts of the City of Paris. |
 Anonymous, Vase for steaming yan (Usage name), -1050, dark patina. Cernuschi Museum, Museum of Asian Arts of the City of Paris. |
