The present li is a fascinating and rare example of ritual bronze vessels commissioned for females in the early Eastern Zhou dynasty. It bears a nine-character inscription on the top of the rim, reading wang zuo Xu shang Xuan Mu bao shang yi, which can be translated as 'the king made this precious heating vessel for Xuan Mu who married to the lord of Xu state'. Whilst the character wang (king) began to appear on bronzes commissioned by foreign clans other than the Zhou royalty in the late Western Zhou period, the excavation site of the present li vessel in the Shaanxi province suggests it was likely a product for the ruling Zhou kings. For more discussions on the related topic, see Wang Shimin, 'Xizhou Chunqiu jinwen zhong de zhuhou juecheng [Title usage among the lords of vassal states during Western Zhou dynasty and the Spring and Autumn period],' Lishi yanjiu / Historical Research, Beijing, 1983, p. 5.

The Zhou king made this vessel for a woman named Xuan Mu. The sixth character mu is commonly recognized as the character for 'mother'. However, it is also a character used in female names during the Zhou dynasty. Examples show that mu is normally the second character following a first character, which often indicates a good wish, a plant's name or, in this case, the name of a ferocious animal, xuan 贙, which, in Chinese mythology, is a powerful beast resembling the appearance of a hound. According to Wu Zhenfeng's study, the third character on the present inscription reads Xu, an unknown vassal state that Xuan Mu was engaged to or originated from (see Wu Zhenfeng, Shang Zhou qingtong qi mingwen ji tuxiang jicheng [Compendium of important inscriptions and images of bronzes from the Shang and Zhou dynasties], vol. 6, Shanghai, 2012, no. 02821).

This particular li is conceivably a yingqi 媵器 (dowry vessel), even though it is lacking the ying 媵 character in the inscription. Yingqi are significant in studies of China's ancient history, as they provide insight into the political alliances made through marriage during this period. In the Zhou dynasty, bronze yingqi were wedding dowries reserved for females in aristocratic and royal families. These vessels would accompany a bride to her new family to be used as ritual or functional vessels. Although the inscription suggests that this Xuan Mu li could have been a gift from the Zhou king to one of his wives, its excavated location reveals that this li was brought away from the new capital of the newly formed Eastern Zhou dynasty, Luoyi (present-day Luoyang). Therefore, this vessel was possibly commissioned by the Zhou king for his daughter who married the lord of Xu, a regional vassal state possibly located in the Qishan area of Shaanxi province.

Compare three closely related li, all of which are yingqi from the early Spring and Autumn period. A pair of Lu Bo Yu Fu Li 魯伯愈父鬲, excavated in the Teng county of Shandong province during the Daoguang period, is in the Shanghai Museum, Shanghai, and illustrated in Chen Peifen, Xia Shang Zhou qingtongqi yanjiu [Study of archaic bronzes from Shang and Zhou dynasties], Eastern Zhou, vol. 1, Shanghai, 2004, pp 34-36, no. 446; the third, the Zhu You Fu Li 鼄友父鬲, formerly in the collects ion of Xia Zhisheng (mid-Qing dynasty), now in the collects ion of the Palace Museum, Beijing, is illustrated in Yan Yiping, Jinwen zongji [Corpus of bronze inscriptions], Taipei, 1983, no. 1498.