Hollow-Legged Tripod (Li Ding)
Unknown Artist
late 900 BCE
Medium
bronze
Dimensions
h. 23 cm · diam. 27.7 cm
Classification
Metalwork
Department
Chinese Art
Museum
Cleveland Museum of Art
Credit
Gift from various donors by exchange and the John L. Severance Fund
Accession Number
1961.203
About this artwork
This food vessel exhibits a new decorative trend of metropolitan Western Zhou foundries. Zoomorphic images became increasingly abstract and subject to linear elaboration. The dominating animal mask (taotie) of the Shang is here transformed, dissolved, and dissected into intricate patterns of curving bands and median grooves. The design is abstract but not devoid of symbolic contents and functions. A smooth and even gray-green patina--the result of natural corrosion during burial--covers the outs...