Pigment Container (tiao se qi) with Elongated Neck and Water Buffalo Head

This object is among the rarest of ancient Chinese bronze vessels as only a few other examples exist. The elongated neck serves as the principal handle while the vessel may also be carried by two smaller, animal-headed loop handles on the sides. Its function as a pigment container has been confirmed by traces of various colors (red, green, white, and black) found within the receptacles of a similar object recovered from the tomb of a high official in the court of King Wen of Zhou (1152–1056 BCE). That vessel is now in the Shaanxi History Museum, Xi’an, Shaanxi province, China. Only three other museums in the world possess similar vessel types—the Ashmolean Museum at the University of Oxford; the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto; and the Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities, Stockholm.