EARLY WESTERN ZHOU DYNASTY (11TH-10TH CENTURY BC)

Details

A SMALL BRONZE RITUAL WINE VESSEL, ZHI
EARLY WESTERN ZHOU DYNASTY (11TH-10TH CENTURY BC)
The vessel is cast with a pear-shaped body rising to a flaring mouth and supported on a tall splayed foot. There is an inscription cast on the interior of the foot, consisting of a single graph. The patina is of a dark greyish-green tone, with some areas of malachite encrustation.
5 ¼ in. (13 cm.) high

Provenance

With Seikodo, Tokyo, Japan, 11 April 1969.
From an important private European collection, acquired prior to June 1982.

Special notice

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Lot Essay

The interior of the foot is cast with a single graph, ju, 'to raise', which may refer to the act of lifting the vessel in a toast, or may refer to the vessel itself.

Compare with a bronze ritual wine vessel of similar proportions, but with decoration on the shoulder and base sold at Christie's New York, 19-20 September 2013, lot 1479. See also two examples of both plain and decorated zhi illustrated by J. Rawson in Western Zhou Ritual Bronzes from the Arthur M. Sackler Collections, Massachusetts, 1990, vol. IIB, pp.630-633, nos.101 and 102, the former with similar elegant proportions to those in this lot. Rawson explains that plain and decorated zhi seem to have co-existed from as early as the Shang period.

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