EARLY WESTERN ZHOU DYNASTY, LATE 11TH-EARLY 10TH CENTURY BC

Details

A RARE BRONZE RITUAL FOOD VESSEL, GUI
EARLY WESTERN ZHOU DYNASTY, LATE 11TH-EARLY 10TH CENTURY BC
The sides well cast in relief on each side with two dragons confronted on a notched flange set atop a shield shape, each with coiled body, clawed foot and open jaws below the backward-curved snout, reserved on a leiwen ground and flanked by the pair of loop handles surmounted by animal masks and with a tab cast with a claw and tail feather projecting from the bottom, the whole raised on a pedestal foot encircled by a band of pairs of serpents separated by flanges, with mottled grey patina and some azurite and green encrustation
9½ in. (24.1 cm.) across handles, box

Provenance

Acquired c. 1985 from a private Hong Kong collection.

Lot Essay

Bronze gui of this type with similar dragons appear to have two different bands of decoration on the foot - either bottle-horn dragons with long curved snouts, or S-shaped serpents like those on the present vessel. The first type is represented by the gui illustrated in Catalogue to the Special Exhibition of Grain Vessels of the Shang and Chou Dynasties, National Palace Museum, Taipei, 1985, pl. 23. The second type is represented by the present example and a gui excavated from a Western Zhou cemetery at Zhuyuangou near Baoji, Shaanxi province, illustrated in Wenwu, 1983:2, pl. 2 fig. 2. Another gui with the S-shaped serpent band on the foot from the Shanghai Museum was included in the exhibition, Bronzes de la Chine antique du XVIII au III siècles avant J.C., Lyon, France, 4 October - 4 December 1988, no. 102. See, also, similar gui sold in these rooms, 28 March 1996, lot 263 and 19 September 2007, lot 204, and another sold at Sotheby's, New York, 22-23 September 2004, lot 110.

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