Chinese Commemorative Vessel with Loop Handles & Inscription

The handles hang like a pair of iron earrings, and nearly as long.

This commemorative vessel with loop handles and inscription comes from Hebei Province, China, and is dated 1846. It is iron. In China, dated inscriptions on bells, censers and vessels were a common way of marking a gift, a dedication or an occasion. Four columns of characters are cut deep into the rounded body, which is built in vertical panels joined at a horizontal seam. Long U-shaped handles drop from small cast lugs, and the whole stands on a heavy splayed foot. It is 20 inches high and 24 in diameter.

It has kept its appointment with posterity ever since.