LATE SHANG DYNASTY, 11TH CENTURY BC

This superbly cast gui with attractive pale greenish-grey patina compares closely with a gui with similar handles and similar decoration of pointed bosses set within a diamond-shaped grid, from the vicinity of the Gan He, Shaanxi Liquan Xian, illustrated in Wenwu ziliao congkan 3, 1980, pp. 28-31, pl. 4:2, and again by J. Rawson in Western Zhou Ritual Bronzes from the Arthur M. Sackler Collections, vol. IIB, The Arthur M. Sackler Foundation, Washington, D.C., 1990, p. 478, fig. 41.1. Also illustrated, p. 378, fig. 41.2, is another similar gui, but with more rounded bosses, which was said to have been found at Anyang. Another comparable gui, formerly in the collection of Chen Jieqi (1813-1884), and said to have been found in Shaanxi Qishan Xian, is illustrated by S. Umehara in Kankaro kikkin-zu, Kyoto, 1947, no. 1.17.

In the entry for the present gui in The Bella and P. P. Chiu Collection of Ancient Chinese Bronzes, Hong Kong, 1988, p. 62, J. Rawson notes, “As with the handles on the present gui, the handles on these Shang vessels often carry rather flat heads. In the early Zhou period, by contrast, comparable gui bore handles crowned by animal heads with horns flattened against the sides, rather than against the tops of the handles…”