Page 59 - Status & Ritual Chinese Archaic Bronzes

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A BRONZE TWIN-HANDLED VESSEL, GUI

LATE SHANG -WESTERN ZHOU DYNASTY (12TH-8TH CENTURY BC)

晚商/西周早期 青銅饕餮紋簋
銘文: 「 亞 XX」

Each side of the body is elaborately cast with a bold taotie mask design, separated by a protruding animal
head above a thin vertical fange. The spreading foot is decorated with a band of stylised mythical beasts.
There is a pair animal-form handles, each with hooked pendant tail underneath. The interior of the body is
cast with a graph, likely to be a clan emblem. The bronze has a dark brownish-green patina.

10¡ in. (26.4 cm.) diam. across the handles

£80,000-120,000 $130,000-190,000
€110,000-160,000

PROVENANCE

The collection of Felix Guggenheim (1904-1976), Beverly Hills, California.
With Rare Art, Inc., New York, before 14 January 1981
From an important private European collection.

LITERATURE

G. Kuwayama, Ancient Ritual Bronzes of China, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1976, pp.46-47, no. 26.

The inscription in the interior consists of an animal silhouette enclosed by the cruciform character ya,
together composing a graph which can be read as a clan emblem or insignia. The animal silhouette
enclosed within appears to be a reptile or sea-creature amongst waves.

Three graphs that may be simplifed versions of the present graph are illustrated in Jinwen bianfulu (shang),
1938, p. 1070, no. 170, comprising similar dragon-like components.

Compare with an early Western Zhou gui in the Sackler Collection with almost identical proportions and
decoration, illustrated by J. Rawson in Western Zhou Ritual Bronzes from the Arthur M. Sackler Collections,
Washington D.C, 1990, vol. IIB, pp. 356-357. The bold taotie mask is centred on a fange surmounted by
an animal head in relief, and animal-form handles with hooked pendants extending from the bottom are
remarkably similar in both vessels. The Sackler gui, being 2 cm. wider in diameter, perhaps came from the
same set of diferently sized ritual vessels.

A gui of comparable form and style can be found in the Freer Gallery of Art, illustrated in Smithsonian
Institution, The Freer Chinese Bronzes, Washington, 1967, vol. I, pl.64, pp. 358-363. This example shares
the same animal-form handles and prominent taotie design centred on a pronounced central fange on
the main body of the vessel. Another example found in the Shaanxi History Museum collection is a gui
excavated from the Western Zhou site Hejia. Despite considerable encrustation, there are clear similarities
in vessel form and large taotie scroll design of the main body, which is surmounted by an animal head in
the top narrow register (The Shaanxi Bronzes, Xi’an, 1994, p. 930.)

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