A BRONZE FOOD VESSEL, GUI

WESTERN ZHOU DYNASTY

Details

A BRONZE FOOD VESSEL, GUI
Western Zhou Dynasty
The slightly bulbous sides cast with vertical ribbing between a band of simple stylized dragons alternating with whorl bosses just below the everted rim, and a band of more elongated dragons encircling the splayed foot, the upper band centered on each side with a small high-relief animal- head boss, the large loop handles issuing from the upper band with horned feline masks and terminating in a vertical tab cast with stylized dragons, the interior with a three or four-character pictogram, areas of malachite encrustation
11in. (28cm.) across handles

Lot Essay

Although a number of vessels of this type with ribbed body have a similar band of whorl, star and dragon motifs in relief below the rim, this motif is usually repeated on the foot. A gui with this same band below the rim, but with a band of dragons encircling the foot, as in the present example, is illustrated by Michel Beurdeley, The Chinese Collector through the Centuries, Vermont and Japan, 1966, no. 14; and a very similar dragon band can be found on the foot of the gui in the Natanael Wessén Collection, illustrated by Bernhard Karlgren and Jan Wirgin, Chinese Bronzes, Stockholm, 1969, no. 5

Another, from the early Western Zhou tomb of Hei Bo at Gansu Lingtai Baicaopo, is illustrated by Jessica Rawson, Western Zhou Ritual Bronzes from the Arthur M. Sackler Collections, vol. IIB, 1990, p. 406, fig. 48.1, as is another gui in the Collections, ibid., pp. 408-9, no. 49