LATE SHANG/EARLY WESTERN ZHOU DYNASTY, 11TH CENTURY BC

One character of the pictograph is a bird standing in profile with a crest on its head. The character may be a clan name, and is the bronze script form of the character yuan, which is a type of bird. The second character may be read as the character zhu.

Compare the similar gui illustrated by J. Rawson, Western Zhou Ritual Bronzes from the Arthur M. Sackler Collections, Washington DC/Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1990, pp. 390-1, no. 45, and another similar example sold in these rooms, 19 September 2006, lot 148.