Mismatched gold and silver bird’s ear pot

This hu (pouring vessel) is bronze, the metal of Chinese ritual, cast in piece-moulds so the Jin workshop could repeat a shape the ancestors would recognise. Bronze was read before it was touched.

The surface is the message. Bronze patterns, the taotie mask above all, were meant to be legible to the initiated and uncanny to everyone else.

Bronze was the voice of early Chinese ritual, vessels cast to hold grain and wine for the ancestors and for the state.

A hu (pouring vessel) like this survived because bronze does, and because someone thought the rite worth keeping. The gold-and-silver-inlaid bronze still rings, if you know how to listen.

Image © The Palace Museum. View the original in the Palace Museum Digital Collection.