Page 132 - Christie's, Important Chinese Works of Art, Hong Kong Dec 3 2021

HERALDING A NEW ERA:

A RARE AND IMPORTANT WESTERN ZHOU

FANGZUOGUI VESSEL

ROBERT D. MOWRY
ALAN J. DWORSKY CURATOR OF CHINESE ART EMERITUS,
HARVARD ART MUSEUMS, AND SENIOR CONSULTANT, CHRISTIE’S

Exceptionally rare, this gui food-serving vessel is art-historically the square socle sports a horizontal panel of vertical ribs bordered
important for its elevation of the bowl on an integrally cast, square above and below by a pair of confronting kuilong and on either
socle and for its reliance on vertical ribs as its principal decorative side by a single, vertically set kuilong, the single kui dragons striding
motif, thereby advancing a newly introduced interpretation of the upward but turning their heads back to face their tails. Although
vessel type; the ribbed décor combined with the tall, square socle, or the kui dragons on the base rise in slight relief against a background
base, signals a break with the stylistic legacy of the previous Shang of finely cast leiwen, or squared spirals, the decorative motifs in the
dynasty and the establishment of a distinctive Zhou-dynasty mode. bands above and below the bowl’s central register of ribs rise in
As such, the vessel joins a small group of other socled gui vessels slight relief against an unembellished ground. A small animal head,
with rib décor produced in the early Western Zhou period (c. likely bovine, rises in slight relief at each corner of the square socle’s
1050–c. 975 BC). Apart from its art-historical importance, this gui otherwise undecorated top.
vessel also has a very distinguished provenance, having previously
been in the collection of the Idemitsu Museum of Arts, Tokyo. Bronze casting came fully into its own in China during the Shang
dynasty (c. 1600 BC–c. 1046 BC) with the production of sacral
A large sacral vessel for serving cooked millet, sorghum, rice, or vessels intended for use in funerary ceremonies. Those vessels
other grains, this bronze gui vessel comprises a circular bowl set on include ones for food and wine as well as ones for water; those
a tall, square socle, or base. The bowl, or container portion of the for food and wine, the types most frequently encountered, group
vessel, has an S-profile that terminates in a lightly flaring lip that themselves into storage and presentation vessels as well as heating,
thickens at its outer edge; it is set on a canted, circular footring. cooking, and serving vessels. A sacral vessel for serving offerings
Integrally cast with the bowl, the hollow, square socle elevates and of cooked cereal grains, the gui first appeared during the Shang
supports the bowl. A loop handle issues from the stylized head of dynasty and continued well into the Zhou (c. 1046 BC–256 BC).
a horned animal on either side of the bowl’s neck, each handle
immediately circling downward and connecting to the bowl just Although standard vessel shapes and established decorative motifs
above the footring. The dense band of vertical ribs encircling the both persisted after the fall of Shang, the people of Western Zhou (c.
bowl’s belly constitutes the vessel’s principal decorative motif; 1046 BC–771 BC) quickly introduced changes, perhaps reflecting
even so, the ribs are not used alone, but, in typical Early Western differing religious beliefs and ceremonial practices; as a result,
Zhou fashion, appear in concert with such subsidiary motifs as already at the beginning of the Western Zhou, some vessel types
the kui dragons, or kuilong, that stride around the splayed footring disappeared, particularly wine vessels, while others evolved, often
and the whirligig bosses that alternate with flower-like motifs in becoming more elaborate and more imposing. Tradition asserts that
the narrow band encircling the neck—as Robert W. Bagley has the new Zhou ruler, King Wu (r. c. 1046– c. 1043 BC) believed that
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termed those design elements. (Chinese authors typically refer excessive wine drinking by the Shang had led to decadence and
to the whirligig bosses and flower-like motifs as “fire and four- failure to maintain proper observance of sacred rituals—and thus
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petal eye motifs”, sometimes as “fire and four-leaf motifs” , and to the fall of the dynasty; in that context, King Wu claimed that
occasionally as “whirlpool and four-leaf motifs”.) Each side of ancestral spirits had shifted their mandate to rule to the Zhou and

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