An archaic bronze ritual food vessel (gui) Western Zhou Dynasty

the vessel with slightly rounded sides standing on a high foot, cast beneath the flared rim with a narrow band of two pairs of confronting birds with long elaborate tails on a leiwen ground, all flanked by up-turned 'bent-ear' handles cast with D-shape motifs, the interior with a thirty-character inscription, the surface displaying heavy malachite, cuprite and azurite encrustation

A similar gui with cover, with the band of long-tailed birds repeated on the foot, in the Art Institute of Chicago, is illustrated in Charles Fabens Kelley and Ch’en Meng-chia, Chinese Bronzes from the Buckingham Collection, Chicago, 1946, pls.XXVIII-XXX, and probably again in Jung Keng, ‘The Bronzes of Shang and Chou’, Yenching Journal of Chinese Studies, monograph series no.17, Peiping, 1941, vol.II, no.284, together with another with a similar design band centred on an animal mask in relief, and two raised lines around the foot, no.285.

The long inscription follows a standard pattern characteristic of middle to late Western Zhou bronzes.