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Lot Essay
Acquired by the present owner in December 1971.
Compare with three very similar examples, all illustrated by J. Rawson, Western Zhou Ritual Bronzes from the Arthur M. Sackler Collections, Vol. IIB, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1990, pp. 368-369, no. 39, from the Sackler Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; fig. 39.1 from the Sumito Collection, Kyoto; and 39.2 from the National Palace Museum, Taibei, where the author notes that each are so similar, they may have been made as a set. The ribbing and treatment of the base is very similar to the present lot, however the cited examples have borders at the shoulder which contain bifurcated dragons.
Compare also with three gui from the late Anyang phase, 1000-1050 BCE, cast with similar vertical ribbing and decorative motifs of whorls and 'stars' within borders on the shoulder and foot, the first in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the second in the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, illustrated by J. Keith Wilson, 'The Stylus and the Brush: Stylistic Change in the Late Anyang and Early Western Zhou Bronze Inscriptions', Orientations, June 2000, figs. 9 and 10; the last in the Central Museum, illustrated in the exhibition catalogue Grain Vessels of the Shang and Chou Dynasties, National Palace Museum, Taipei, 1985, pp. 222-223, plate 26.
Compare with three very similar examples, all illustrated by J. Rawson, Western Zhou Ritual Bronzes from the Arthur M. Sackler Collections, Vol. IIB, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1990, pp. 368-369, no. 39, from the Sackler Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; fig. 39.1 from the Sumito Collection, Kyoto; and 39.2 from the National Palace Museum, Taibei, where the author notes that each are so similar, they may have been made as a set. The ribbing and treatment of the base is very similar to the present lot, however the cited examples have borders at the shoulder which contain bifurcated dragons.
Compare also with three gui from the late Anyang phase, 1000-1050 BCE, cast with similar vertical ribbing and decorative motifs of whorls and 'stars' within borders on the shoulder and foot, the first in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the second in the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, illustrated by J. Keith Wilson, 'The Stylus and the Brush: Stylistic Change in the Late Anyang and Early Western Zhou Bronze Inscriptions', Orientations, June 2000, figs. 9 and 10; the last in the Central Museum, illustrated in the exhibition catalogue Grain Vessels of the Shang and Chou Dynasties, National Palace Museum, Taipei, 1985, pp. 222-223, plate 26.