AN ARCHAIC RITUAL BRONZE FOOD VESSEL, GUI
ZHOU DYNASTY
ZHOU DYNASTY
LOT SOLD.
75,000 GBP
Details & Cataloguing
Important Chinese Art
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London
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AN ARCHAIC RITUAL BRONZE FOOD VESSEL, GUI
ZHOU DYNASTY
ZHOU DYNASTY
the deep U-shaped sides rising to an everted rim flanked by a pair of loop handles each issuing from a bovine mask and terminating in a hooked pendent tab, cast with a wide band of diamonds and bosses around the body between borders of kui dragons and taotie scrolls, the upper border separated by a small central head of a horned mythical beast in high-relief on both sides, the greenish-brown patina with light malachite encrustation
29.5 cm, 11 5/8 in.
Read Condition Report
Read Condition Report
29.5 cm, 11 5/8 in.
Provenance
Sotheby’s New York, 8th May 1980, lot 46.
Catalogue Note
This vessel is striking for its robust form and well-defined diamond pattern and represents a group of archaic bronze ritual vessels that were produced throughout the early and middle Western Zhou period. Vessels of this type are discussed by Jessica Rawson in Western Zhou Ritual Bronzes from the Arthur M. Sackler Collections, vol. IIB, Washington D.C., 1990, pp 370-378, who notes that this design was inherited from the late Shang period and appears to have been very popular in Shaanxi province, where a large number of these vessels were excavated. While late Shang and early Western Zhou examples feature small diamonds, often with sharply projecting bosses, the large diamonds on this piece suggests a middle Western Zhou date.
Three gui with diamond patterns, but cast with various bands at the neck, in the Freer and Sackler Galleries, Washington D.C., are illustrated ibid., pls 40, 41 and 45. Compare also two gui with diamond patterns, excavated in Baoji, Shaanxi province, illustrated in Baoji Yu guo mudi/ Yu State Cemeteries in Baoji, Beijing, 1988, pl. CLIX, nos 1 and 3, the first with its matching cover; another unearthed at a tomb in Qucun, Quwuo county, Shanxi province, illustrated in Zhongguo qingtongqi quanji [Complete collection of Chinese bronzes], Beijing, 1997, vol. 6, pl. 39; and a further example sold in our New York rooms, 21st September 2006, lot 267.
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