Fangjia wine vessel

Kia with four spread legs, inscribed. The decor of the body, S-shaped in profile, displays the usual elements of a bodied t'ao-t'ieh flanked by vertical dragons and, in the neck belt, beaked dragons with a band of rising blades filled with disolved cicada figures. The flanges on the body are low, narrow and unscored. Scores appear, instead, on the horns of the large t'ao-t'ieh and on parts of the antithetical beaked dragons appearing in a complicated arrangement on the outer surfaces of the legs. On the top of the handle is a t'ao-t'ieh with C-shaped horns, its mouth gaping over a finely-drawn cicada. The uprights, square at the base, with an incurving profile, are decorated with a spiral band, slender rising blades, and t'ao-t'ieh masks on the tops. Patina grey-green