Bianhu wine vessel

With its flattened oval form and a brickwork arrangement of rectangular panels decorated with a tight “feather curl” pattern in relief, this wine flask emphasizes the creative approach taken toward surface ornamentation during the late Bronze Age. The triangle pattern on the neck and the bands dividing the cast panels in the main body are of inlaid copper. The “feather curl” pattern seen here exists in slightly different versions on many other late Zhou bronzes and seems to have persisted from about 600 to 250 BCE. The pattern was made by carved ceramic stamps, which were pressed into the still-soft surface of the clay mold before the vessel was cast.