A RARE DOCUMENTARY BRONZE BELL, ZHONG

WESTERN ZHOU DYNASTY, 9TH CENTURY B.C.

Details

A RARE DOCUMENTARY BRONZE BELL, ZHONG
Western Zhou Dynasty, 9th Century B.C.
Of lenticular section, each side decorated with two panels divided into five bands, three with truncated conical bosses cast in high relief and two with flat-cast dragons, the area between left plain on one side and cast in intaglio on the other with a twenty-two character inscription, with pairs of addorsed dragons below on each side above the arched lower rim, the flat top cast in intaglio with a field of large angular scrolls from which rises the tapering columnar handle encircled towards its base by a boss-cast collar with a loop projecting from one side, with mottled green and blue-green encrustation allover
26¼in. (66.7cm.) high, wood stand

Lot Essay

For a similar bell see Zhanguo Wanwu Jinghua (Gems of China's Cultural Relics), 1992, pl. 106, where the lower register of decoration is more vertical in format than the present example. Another, from the Shanghai Museum, is illustrated by Michel Beurdeley, The Chinese Collector through the Centuries, Rutland, Vermont and Tokyo, Japan, 1966, p. 221, no. 19