WESTERN ZHOU DYNASTY, 10TH-9TH CENTURY BC

Details

A BRONZE RITUAL WINE VESSEL, ZUN
WESTERN ZHOU DYNASTY, 10TH-9TH CENTURY BC
The pear-shaped body is of circular section, and is crisply cast in high relief on each side with an animal mask flanked by two pairs of birds with long crests trailing from their backward-turned heads on a leiwen band between narrow raised borders and above a bow-string band. The patina is of mottled green and grey color and there is extensive malachite and azurite encrustation.
7 7/8 in. (20 cm.) high, two Japanese wood boxes, one with an inscription by Zoroku (1898-1984) dated to 1929, wood stand

Provenance

Acquired in Kansai, Japan in the 1940s, and thence by descent within the family.

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Lot Essay

A very similar, but smaller (16.8 cm.), zun is illustrated by Ming S. Wilson in "Archaic Chinese Bronzes in the Victoria & Albert Museum," Chinese Bronzes, Selected Articles from Orientations 1983-2000, Hong Kong, 2001, p. 192, fig. 9, where it is dated Western Zhou dynasty, 10th-9th century BC.

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