Page 17 - March 17 2017 Chinese Art NYC, Christies

PROPERTY FROM A DISTINGUISHED COLLECTION

1008
A BRONZE RITUAL FOOD VESSEL, GUI

EARLY WESTERN ZHOU DYNASTY, 11TH CENTURY BC
The body is cast in rounded relief on a plain ground with a wide ‘diamond-and-boss’ band below a bow-
string border and a band centered on each side by an animal mask cast in high relief fanked by three
dragons with backward-turned heads alternating with two whorl bosses, all between further bow-string
borders and interrupted by the pair of C-shaped handles that issue from an animal head and are cast at
the bottom with a hooked pendant. The whole is raised on a foot encircled by a band centered on each side
by a simplifed mask fanked by two pairs of serpents that are separated by a narrow fange below each
handle. The surface has a mottled dark grey and milky olive-green patina.
9º in. (23.5 cm.) diam.
$60,000-80,000

PROVENANCE

Eskenazi, London, 1984.
Arthur M. Sackler (1913-1987) Collections.
Else Sackler (1913-2000) Collection, and thence by descent within the family.
Two other gui of this design have been published, one from the collection of Madame Wannieck, Paris,
illustrated in the Catalogue of the International Exhibition of Chinese Art, Royal Academy of Arts, London,
1935-36, pl. 20, no. 214; and the other by B. Karlgren, ‘New Studies on Chinese Bronzes’, B.M.F.E.A., No.
9, Stockholm, 1937, pl. XL, no. 381.
西周早期 青銅乳釘紋簋

15