.jpg?w=1)
.jpg?w=1)
.jpg?w=1)
.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
This vessel is an early Western Zhou ritual wine container you, used to hold the fragrant sacrificial liquor employed in ancestral ceremonies.
The ten-character inscription cast inside both the cover and the body reads: “Precious ritual vessel commissioned by ___ Gao by royal mandate, in remembrance of his father Yi.”
A you of comparable size and decoration, also with tapir-head terminals, is published in Hakutsuru Kikkinshu (Collection of the Hakutsuru Art Museum), Kyoto, 1939, no. 13.
See also a bronze you from the early Western Zhou dynasty, bearing a zuo bao yi inscription, sold at Christie’s London, 7 November 2017, lot 1; and another closely related example from the Raymond A. Bidwell (1876–1954) Collection and the Springfield Museums, Springfield, Massachusetts (accessioned in 1962), sold at Christie’s New York, 22 March 2013, lot 1129.
The ten-character inscription cast inside both the cover and the body reads: “Precious ritual vessel commissioned by ___ Gao by royal mandate, in remembrance of his father Yi.”
A you of comparable size and decoration, also with tapir-head terminals, is published in Hakutsuru Kikkinshu (Collection of the Hakutsuru Art Museum), Kyoto, 1939, no. 13.
See also a bronze you from the early Western Zhou dynasty, bearing a zuo bao yi inscription, sold at Christie’s London, 7 November 2017, lot 1; and another closely related example from the Raymond A. Bidwell (1876–1954) Collection and the Springfield Museums, Springfield, Massachusetts (accessioned in 1962), sold at Christie’s New York, 22 March 2013, lot 1129.