Page 134 - Christie's, Important Chinese Works of Art, Hong Kong Dec 3 2021

Decoration with vertical ribs of course was not limited to gui of the square socle, as witnessed by the present vessel and by the
vessels, whether those with a square socle or those with a circular Early Western Zhou Niaowen Fangzuo Gui in the collection of the
footring; in fact, Western Zhou vessels in functional types other Shanghai Museum. 13
than the gui occasionally also incorporated bands of vertical ribs
into their decorative schemes, as evinced by the you wine vessel By the Middle Western Zhou period (c. 975–c. 875 BC) vertical
and associated, but independently cast, socle in the collection of ribs had assumed greater prominence and occasionally served as
the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (24.72.2a–c) and by a gui vessel’s sole decorative motif, to the exclusion of subsidiary
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the Mu Xin Zun wine vessel—formerly in the collection of Julius bands of dragons, birds, and abstract motifs around the neck and
Eberhardt (of Vienna, Austria)—which features a narrow band of footring. A socled gui embellished solely with vertical ribs on both
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vertical ribs around its midsection. bowl and socle is in the collection of the Shanghai Museum, for
example, and a pair of virtually identical gui vessels—their covers
In general, the earliest Western Zhou socled gui vessels feature the also sporting a dense pattern of ribs—sold at Christie’s, New York,
same decorative motif on both bowl and socle, typically a taotie on 13 September 2019 (Lot 831). 15
mask, confronting birds, or other animals, as evinced by the Early
Western Zhou socled gui discovered in 1976 in the Lintong district Just as the socled gui fell from favor late in the late Western Zhou
of Xi’an or by the well-known example in the collection of the period (c. 875–771 BC), so did vertical ribs virtually disappear from
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Harvard Art Museums (1944.57.12). Even so, a few of the earliest the repertory of decorative motifs at that time. The new style of gui
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Western Zhou socled gui vessels feature a panel of vertical ribs vessel, popular through the late Western Zhou period and beyond,
on each face of the base but a different motif on the bowl, often had the bowl resting either on a circular footring or on three short
an abstract, non-representational pattern, as seen in the Shanghai legs and sporting decoration of horizontal flutes around both bowl
Museum’s Jia Gui, the large, four-handled gui in the Hakutsuru and cover, as exemplified by the Shi Song Gui in the collection of
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Fine Art Museum in Kobe, Japan, and the large, four-handled gui the Shanghai Museum (45688) and two such gui in the collection
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in the Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, CT (1954.26.1), of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (1975.66.1a, b and
each of which features a diamond-and-spike pattern on the bowl 1988.20.3a, b). 17
and a dense panel of vertical ribs on each face of the socle.
The present vessel shows close kinship to five other well-known
When first introduced as decoration around the bowl’s belly on socled gui vessels that date to the Western Zhou period: one in the
socled gui vessels, ribbed decoration was usually accompanied by National Palace Museum, Taipei (fig. 1), one in the Shanghai
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subsidiary bands around the neck and footring of stylized dragons, Museum, one in the Sumitomo Collection 住友コレクショ
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of birds, of snakes, or of such abstract designs as whirligig bosses ン at the Sen-oku Hakuko Kan, Kyoto, one in the National
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and stylized-flower motifs, as evinced by the present socled gui. In Museum of Scotland, Edinburgh (V.2007.128), and one in the
such vessels, a single horizontal panel of vertical ribs surrounded by U.S. National Museum of Asian Art’s Arthur M. Sackler Gallery,
other design elements typically appeared at the center of each face Washington, DC (S1987.342). 22

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