Chinese Cocoon-Form Wine Vessel

An enormous cocoon, in clay, with a flared mouth and no visible moth.

This cocoon-form wine vessel comes from China and belongs to the Han Dynasty, 206 BCE to 220 CE. It is incised and burnished pottery. Jars in this silkworm cocoon shape are closely associated with the Han period. Households used them for wine and other liquids, and many survive because they were buried in tombs. The long oval body lies on its side over a low, ringed foot, with a short neck and wide rim above. Groups of incised lines run around the body at even intervals. The burnished surface is a deep brown-black. Twenty inches wide and seventeen high.

Two thousand years on, the wine has made other arrangements.