Ancient China: Shang Bronzes to the Terracotta Army

Early Chinese art reveals a world of ritual, ancestors and state power. During the Shang dynasty (about 1600–1046 BCE), workshops cast magnificent bronze vessels used to offer food and wine to ancestors, decorating them with the mask-like taotie motif. Shang bronzes were made by piece-mold casting, a technique requiring many skilled workers and large supplies of metal that only a ruling elite could control.

The tomb of Lady Fu Hao, a queen and military leader, held hundreds of bronzes. Over a thousand years later, the first emperor of a unified China, Qin Shi Huang, was buried with an army of life-sized terracotta soldiers, each with individual features. The army expresses his belief in power after death and the organizational strength of his state, which also standardized writing, weights and coins.