MID-TO-LATE WESTERN ZHOU DYNASTY, 9TH-8TH CENTURY BC

Details

AN UNUSUAL BRONZE RITUAL TRIPOD FOOD VESSEL, DING
MID-TO-LATE WESTERN ZHOU DYNASTY, 9TH-8TH CENTURY BC
The somewhat compressed body is raised on three hemispherical legs surmounted by dragon masks, and is crisply cast around the sides with a band of angular scrolls formed by interlocking T's below a band of three pairs of addorsed dragons. A pair of U-shaped handles rises from the slightly inward-canted rim. There are mold marks on the underside that connect the legs. A single character, zu, (ancestor), is cast below the rim on the interior.
6½ in. (16.5 cm.) high

Provenance

J.T. Tai & Co., New York, October 1965.
Arthur M. Sackler Collections, New York.
Else Sackler, and thence by descent within the family.

Literature

Robert Poor, Bronze Ritual Vessels of Ancient China, (slide lecture), New York, 1968.
Noel Barnard and Cheung Kwong-yue, Rubbings and Hand Copies of Bronze Inscriptions in Chinese, Japanese, European, American, and Australasian Collections, Taipei, 1978, no. 1707 (inscription only, misattributed to a jue).
Hayashi Minao, In Shu Jidai Seidoki No Kenkyu (In Shu Seidoki Soran Ichi), Tokyo, 1984, no. 267.
Jessica Rawson, Western Zhou Ritual Bronzes from the Arthur M. Sackler Collections, vol. IIB, Arthur M. Sackler Foundation, 1990, pp. 290-91, no. 20.

Exhibited

New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Aspects of Ch'ang-sha Culture, 21 August - 24 September 1967.

If you wish to view the condition report of this lot, please sign in to your account.

View condition report

Lot Essay

Compare the gui of slightly smaller size (15.2 cm.) in the Shanghai Museum, cast with a similar band of angular scrolls around the sides, but with a scroll band below the rim and lacking the dragon masks on the legs, included in the exhibition Bronzes de la Chine Antique du XVIII au III siecles avant J.C., Milan, 1988, pp. 114-15, no. 38.

More from Fine Chinese Ceramics and Works of Art

View All