Lot 595. An archaic bronze ritual blade, kui, Late Shang-Early Western Zhou dynasty, 12th - 11th century BC. Estimate 5,000 — 7,000 USD. Photo: Sotheby's.

finely cast of triangular shape with matching relief on both sides and an upturned curly-bracket-form shield rising from the base, spreading across the base of each side a wide taotie mask in high relief over a leiwen ground, five smaller low-relief taotie masks descending along the central axis, with mask-like imagery incised in the adjacent space, pierced in three places, the tortoise shell-colored patina under malachite encrustations. Length 10 1/2  in., 26.5 cm

Provenance: European Private Collection.
Sotheby's London, 10th June 1997, lot 108.
Collection of Bernadette and William M. B. Berger, Denver, Colorado, acquired in 1997.

Note: A very similar blade from the Hellström collection, now in the Stockholm Museum, is illustrated in Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities Album, 1971, pl. 34; another from the Wannieck collection in Sueji Umehara, Shina-Kodo Seikwa, part III, vol. II, 1933, pl. 84; and a third, still retaining its tang, from the collection of D. David-Weill sold in our London rooms, 29th February, 1972, lot 97.

Sotheby's. Important Chinese Art, New York, 14 Mar 2017, 10:30 AM