Page 180 - Chinese Works of Art Chritie's Mar. 22-23 2018

A lei vessel of similar form and decoration found in Quandu village, Fengxiang county, Shaanxi province,
is illustrated in Zhongguo qingtongqi quanji (Complete Collection of Chinese Bronzes), vol. 5: Western
Zhou 1, Beijing, 1996, p. 174, no. 182. Lei vessels of identical form, and with similar decoration, except
for the regardant dragons on the shoulders, include a pair found at Qijiacun, Fufeng county, Shaanxi
province, illustrated in Shaanxi chutu shang zhou qingtongqi (Bronze Vessels Unearthed from the
Shaanxi Province), vol. II, Beijing, 1980, pls. 130 and 131; the Yan Yu Shi lei in the Palace Museum,
Beijing, with a nineteen-character inscription identifying it as zunlei (ritual lei vessel), illustrated in
The Complete Collection of Treasures of the Palace Museum, - 27 - Bronze Ritual Vessels and Musical
Instruments, Hong Kong, 2006, pp. 158-59, no. 102; one in the Asian Art Museum, San Francisco,
illustrated by René Yvon Lefebvre d’Argencé in Bronze vessels of ancient China in the Avery Brundage
Collection, San Francisco, 1977, p. 92-93, no. XXXVIII; one in the Meiyintang Collection, illustrated by
Wang Tao in Chinese Bronzes from the Meiyintang Collection, London, 2009, pp. 120-21, no. 54; and
another sold at Sotheby’s New York, 16 September 2009, lot 121.
The result of Oxford thermoluminescence test no. PH1721/509 is consistent with the dating of this lot.

(another view)

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