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Why did a fangding vessel have four legs?
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Chinese bronzes
Bronze gu from Anyang, Henan province, China, Shang dynasty (c. 1600–1046 bce); in the William Rockhill Nelson Gallery and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, Kansas City, Mo.
In the context of Chinese bronzes, the fangding is a square-shaped vessel that stands on four legs. While round-bodied vessels like the li typically feature three legs, the square-section design of the fangding necessitates four legs to support its shape.1
These square-section vessels are believed to derive from boxes, baskets, or containers originally made of carved wood or bone, rather than the pottery prototypes that influenced the shapes of round-bodied vessels.1