Jar (Hu) with Musical Scenes Artist: Unknown

1st–3rd century CE

Asian Art

By appointment, Wurtele Study Center

Alternating figures of musicians and dancers decorate this bronze vessel. The musicians sit side by side, calmly playing their instruments, while the dancers move exuberantly, lifting their arms so their drapery flows dramatically behind them. This scene may depict performers during a ritual in which the souls of the dead were invoked to return to their bodies. The imagery coincides with the function of the vessel itself: as a funerary offering, this "spirit good," or mingqi vessel, was deposited in a tomb, where the sounds and dances it portrays would have accompanied the dead in the afterlife.

Medium

Bronze, painted with lacquer-like pigments

Dimensions

7 1/4 × 4 5/16 × 4 5/16 in. (18.4 × 11 × 11 cm)

Credit Line

Hobart and Edward Small Moore Memorial Collection, Gift of Mrs. William H. Moore

Accession Number

1954.49.1

Geography

China

Culture

Chinese

Period

Eastern Han dynasty (25–220 C.E.)

Classification

Containers

Disclaimer

Note: This electronic record was created from historic documentation that does not necessarily reflect the Yale University Art Gallery’s complete or current knowledge about the object. Review and updating of records is ongoing.

Provenance
Ton-ying and Company, New York, 1938; Mrs. William H. Moore (1858–1955), New York; Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, Conn.
Bibliography
  • Handbook of the Collections, exh. cat. (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Art Gallery, 1992), 285, ill
  • Diane M. Nelson, "Bronze "Ming-ch'i" Vessels with Painted Decoration: A Regional Study in Han Pictorialism," Artibus Asiae 42, no. 2–3 (1980), fig. 27
  • Sueji Umehara, "Nirerinfu shutsudo to tsutaeru ichi gun no kansai edagoki," Yamato Bunka 17 (1955), 76, fig. 9
Object copyright
No Copyright - United States
Additional information

Object/Work type

jars

Technical metadata and APIs

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