EARLY WESTERN ZHOU DYNASTY, 11TH CENTURY BC

Details

A BRONZE RITUAL VESSEL, GUI
EARLY WESTERN ZHOU DYNASTY, 11TH CENTURY BC
The sides cast in relief with two large taotie masks centered on a narrow flange below a small mask and flanked at the sides by hooked scrolls, with a pair of loop handles also cast with scrolls below a bovine mask and with a hooked tab pendent at the bottom, the spreading pedestal foot encircled by a band of slender dragons with open jaws, the dark grey patina with malachite and cuprite encrustation
10 in. (25.4 cm.) across handles

Lot Essay

A similar gui with a ten-character inscription is illustrated by J. Rawson, Western Zhou Ritual Bronzes from the Arthur M. Sackler Collections, The Arthur M. Sackler Foundation, 1990, vol. IIB, pp. 356-7, no. 37. The author notes that gui of this type were quite popular and lists similar excavated examples, p. 358.

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