A very rare bronze ritual tripod food vessel, li, early Western Zhou dynasty, 11th-10th century B.C.

12 septembre 2018

A very rare bronze ritual tripod food vessel, li, early Western Zhou dynasty, 11th-10th century B.C.

Lot 1114. A very rare bronze ritual tripod food vessel, li, early Western Zhou dynasty, 11th-10th century B.C.; 7 ¼ in. (18 cm.) across handles. Estimate USD 250,000 - USD 350,000. Price realised USD 492,500. © Christie's Images Ltd 2018

The well-cast tripod vessel of compressed form is decorated in high relief on each lobe with a large taotie mask with buffalo horns below the everted rim set with a pair of bail handles. A four-character inscription is cast on the side of the interior reading rui shi zuo li. The bronze has a silver-grey and golden patina with light malachite encrustation, and there are remains of black inlay in the recessed areas of the decoration.

Provenance: C.T. Loo & Co., Paris.
Christie's London, 12 October 1970, lot 105.
J.T. Tai & Co., New York.
Arthur M. Sackler Collection.
The Arthur M. Sackler Foundation.

Literature: B. Karlgren, 'New Studies on Chinese Bronzes', Bulletin of the Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities, No. 9, Stockholm, 1937, pp.1-117, pl. 7, no. 163.
D. Lion-Goldschmidt and Jean-Claude Moreau-Gobard, Chinese Art: Bronzes, Jades, Sculpture, Ceramics, New York, 1966, p. 48, no. 20. (Revised English edition 1980)
Minao Hayashi, In Shu seidoki soran (Conspectus of Yin and Zhou Bronzes), vol. 1 (plates), Tokyo, 1984, p. 65, li no. 48.
J. Rawson, Western Zhou Ritual Bronzes from the Arthur M. Sackler Collections, vol. IIB, The Arthur M. Sackler Foundation, Washington, D.C., 1990, pp. 312-15, no. 25.

Exhibited: Champaign, Illinois, Krannert Art Museum, 1999 - 2009.

Note: The four-character inscription might be translated as “Rui archivist/official made this li”. Rui is the name of a Western Zhou polity ruled by a branch of the Zhou royal family, surnamed Ji, who also adopted Rui as their clan name. Between 2005 and 2010, a group of elite burials were excavated near Liangdaicun, Hancheng city, Shaanxi province with spectacular jades, gold objects and bronzes, some of which bear names of the Rui nobility (See Shanghai Museum and Shaanxi Provincial Institute of Archaeology, Golden Age of the Rui State, Shanghai, 2012). Although the Hancheng Liangdaicun burials generally date from the late Western Zhou into early Spring and Autumn periods, Rui nobles have been in the region since early Western Zhou.

The present li is among a handful of early Rui bronzes that have entered various collections. According to Zhang Maorong from the Shaanxi Normal University, only two Ruigongshu gui found in Huangxian, Shandong province and the Ruibo gui in the Shouyang Studio can be dated before the late Western Zhou dynasty among thirty-three known Rui bronzes. (See Shanghai Museum and Art Museum of the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Zhongguo gudai qingtongqi guoji yantaohui lunwenji (Collection of Essays prepared for the International Conference on Ancient Chinese Bronzes), 2010, p. 67). In addition to three early Rui bronzes Professor Zhang cited, we have found four more examples: the present Ruishi li; the Ruiji gui in National Palace Museum, Taipei, illustrated in Gugong xizhou jinwen lu (Western Zhou Bronze Inscriptions in the Palace Museum), Taipei, 2001, no. 23; the Ruigong gui exhibited and illustrated by J.J. Lally & Co., Ancient Chinese Bronzes, New York, 2011, no. 3; and the Ruiboqi hunow in the Shanghai Museum, exhibited and illustrated by Eskenazi Ltd., Fiftieth Anniversary Exhibition: Twelve Chinese Masterworks, London, 2010, no. 1. The Ruigongshu gui, the Ruibo gui, and the Ruigong gui are of the same pedestaled gui form and are decorated with very similar elaborate phoenix motifs, and can be dated to the middle Western Zhou dynasty. The Ruiboqi hu are slightly later than the Ruigong/Ruibo gui based on its design and style of its inscription. The present Ruishi li and the National Palace Museum Ruiji li, both dates from the later part of the early Western Zhou dynasty appear to be the earliest known Rui bronzes.