A BRONZE RITUAL FOOD VESSEL, GUI

EARLY WESTERN ZHOU DYNASTY, 11TH CENTURY BC

Details

A BRONZE RITUAL FOOD VESSEL, GUI
EARLY WESTERN ZHOU DYNASTY, 11TH CENTURY BC
Cast in relief with two taotie masks centered on a narrow flange below a small mask and flanked either side with hooked scrolls, separated by a pair of loop handles issuing from a bovine mask and with a hooked flange projecting from the bottom, all above a band of slender dragons with open jaws, the base unusually cast in thread relief with a coiled dragon chasing its tail, with a greyish patina and some light malachite encrustation
10½ in. (26.6 cm.) across handles, Japanese wood box and wood stand

Lot Essay

Gui of this type were quite popular during the early Western Zhou period and there are a number of excavated examples listed by J. Rawson, Western Zhou Ritual Bronzes from the Arthur M. Sackler Collections, The Arthur M. Sackler Foundation, 1990, vol. IIB, p. 358, in her entry for a similar bronze gui in the collection, pp. 356-7, no. 37. See, also, the similar vessel illustrated in Catalogue to the Special Exhibition of Grain Vessels of the Shang and Chou Dynasties, National Palace Museum, Taipei, 1985, pp. 234-5, pl. 32.

More from Fine Chinese Ceramics and Works of Art

View All