Wine warmer (Jue)

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Every ancient Chinese bronze thus far discovered was cast using a complex pottery section-mold—a Chinese invention. But this vessel’s shape—angular, with a thin-walled body, a rim that appears “folded over,” and a “strap” handle—implies an earlier hammered sheet-metal mode of manufacture that might have been introduced from western Asia, where bronze metallurgy developed two thousand years before it appeared in China.

Asian Art

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Met's collection of Asian art—more than 35,000 objects, ranging in date from the third millennium B.C. to the twenty-first century—is one of the largest and most comprehensive in the world. Each of the many civilizations of Asia is represented by outstanding works, providing an unrivaled experience of the artistic traditions of nearly half the world.

Metropolitan Museum of Art