Archaic bronze wine Vessel and cover (hu)

Middle to Late Western Zhou period, 10th - 9th century BC

This bronze hu vessel, most probably originally a wine container, is remarkable for its decoration of cicadas cast in the round, combined with wave-like peaks.  Its inscription indicates that it was commissioned by one of the Dukes of the Rui state of the Middle Western Zhou period.  It was unearthed sometime in the late nineteenth century and belonged, in the early twentieth century, to the legendary collector and connoisseur Viceroy Duan Fang (1861-1911), a high official serving the Guangxu Emperor and his powerful mother the Dowager Empress Cixi.