MID-WESTERN ZHOU DYNASTY, 10TH-9TH CENTURY BC

This unusual vessel represents a very rare type of li that takes inspiration in both form and decoration from contemporaneous ceramic li vessels, which were widely used in Shaanxi and Henan provinces. In her entry for the current vessel in Western Zhou Ritual Bronzes from the Arthur M. Sackler Collections, vol. IIB, Washington, D.C., 1990, pp.320-23, no. 27, J. Rawson illustrates, p. 322, fig. 27.3, a middle Western Zhou ceramic li in the British Museum, London, of similar shape and decoration from Shaanxi Chang’an Puducun. Rawson also illustrates several related bronze li inspired by ceramic prototypes, including one, fig. 27.2 (left), which like the ceramic li is also from Shaanxi Chang’an Puducun. Like the current li, the Shaanxi bronze li has a flat, angled mouth rim, narrow, comb-like ridge decoration and raised studs on the lobes, but lacks the elongated U-shaped handles seen on the current example, as do all the other bronze li Rawson illustrates.

This vessel was formerly in the renowned collection of Mrs. Christian R. Holmes (1871-1941), one of the foremost collectors of Chinese art in the twentieth century. Mrs. Holmes, née Bettie Fleischmann, was the daughter of Charles Fleischmann, of Fleischmann's Yeast, Gin, and Margarine. In 1896 she married Dr. Christian Rasmus Holmes, a Danish immigrant to the U.S. in 1872, who graduated from Miami Medical College in Cincinnati, Ohio, and later founded the Cincinnati General Hospital in 1903. Much of Mrs. Holmes' collection of Chinese bronzes eventually entered the collection of Avery Brundage, which today represents a third of the bronze holdings of the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco. Mrs. Holmes' collection is now represented in major museum collections worldwide.