Page 85 - Sotheby's Important Chinese Art, Sept. 21-22, 2-21, NYC

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AN ARCHAIC BRONZE RITUAL FOOD VESSEL period (c. 1046-771 BC). Among the gui with comparable
AND COVER (GUI) motifs, however, the present lot is distinguished by the
WESTERN ZHOU DYNASTY shape of the spiral horns on its handles and the paw feet.
Inscriptions found on vessels of this type identify them as
the compressed globular body raised on three mask-and- food containers used for sacrificial purposes.
paw legs beneath a waisted circular foot, cast with recessed Closely related examples can be found in important
horizontal bands between borders of stylized birds at the public collections, including two larger vessels, both with
rim and abstract cicada-lappets at the foot, set to each side inscriptions but one without a cover, in the Palace Museum,
with D-form handles issuing from large horned-animal masks Beijing (acc. nos 新 155097 and 新 142973), illustrated in
and suspending tabs at the underside, the domed cover cast Bronzes in the Palace Museum, Beijing, 1999, pls 191 and 193;
with a further frieze of stylized birds beneath recessed bands and a smaller one, possibly unearthed in Shaanxi province,
and a flaring circular knop, the surface with bright green in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles (acc.
malachite patina mottled with russet patches, the interior of no. M.89.136.12a-b). Compare also two other gui, both with
the cover and base with matching crossed arrow pictograms a coiled dragon medallion at the center of the cover and an
which may be read as ci (2) inscription on the interior, one sold in our London rooms,
Width 13½ in., 34.2 cm 15th April 1980, lot 12, the other in these rooms, 12th June
1984, lot 55.
PROVENANCE
Collection of Stanley Herzman (1906-2001). $ 80,000-120,000
Collection of William Appleby (1915-2007).
J.J. Lally & Co., New York. 西周 朿簋
Elevated on three legs and decorated with horizontal 銘文：
grooves, this vessel represents one of the archetypal
examples of gui produced during the late Western Zhou 朿
來源：
Stanley Herzman (1906-2001) 收藏
William Appleby (1915-2007) 收藏
藍理捷，紐約

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PROPERTY OF A LADY The band of alternating mythical beast masks and whorl
AN ARCHAIC BRONZE RITUAL FOOD VESSEL bosses around the shoulder of the present piece also
(GUI) appears on many bronzes from the Anyang foundries. See
four closely related examples with dragons in relief in the
LATE SHANG / EARLY WESTERN ZHOU upper register instead of mythical beast masks: one in the
DYNASTY Arthur M. Sackler Collection, published in ibid., pl. 103;
another formerly in the Mount Trust Collection, illustrated
the deep rounded sides cast with a band of vertical ribs in ibid., pl. 103.17.; the third sold at Christie’s New York, 18th
below a frieze of alternating mythical beast masks and September 1997, lot 326; and the fourth is in the Los Angeles
whorls further separated by two horned mythical beast County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, (acc. no. M.75.111.2).
masks cast in high relief, the sides framed by a pair of Compare also a similar example excavated from a Western
D-form handles issuing from bovine masks and set with Zhou tomb in Gansu, illustrated in Wenwu, no. 12, 1972, pl.
pendent tabs, all supported on a tall splayed foot decorated 3, fig. 4.
with a band of alternating tufted and circular whorls
Diameter 12 in., 30.5 cm ⊖ $ 60,000-80,000
PROVENANCE
Old Hong Kong Collection. 商末 / 西周初 青銅獸面直棱紋簋
Mandala Fine Arts, Hong Kong, 2003.
來源：
The present gui is remarkable in its bold casting of the 香港舊藏
vertical ribs and its adaptation of long-established archaic
motifs which trace back to cultures as early as the Erligang Mandala Fine Arts，香港，2003年
phase, as discussed by Robert Bagley in Shang Ritual
Bronzes in the Arthur M. Sackler Collections, Cambridge,
1987, p.532. Bagley also suggests that these new ways of
decorating gui vessels became increasingly prevalent in the
Western Zhou dynasty.

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