Tags: bronzes | Shang dynasty | tripod

The bronze tripod developed from the pottery tripod of the Neolithic Age. This tripod with the Taotie design is an implement from the late Shang Dynasty. The mouth of the implement opens outward, the edge is wide, there is a ring on the shallow rim, and a pair of ring-like handles. With the support of three cone-shaped legs, the wall of the round bottom is very thin but deep. Besides a circle of single patterns on the waist of the tripod, there is a ring of the Taotie design on the top half. The Taotie design was also called the beast face design. It was the most common design of the bronzes, and it was combined with many characteristics of different animals, so the Taotie design also has many shapes like ox's horns, ram's horns, tigers and beast faces. 

National Museum of History