Lot 104. An archaic bronze ritual food vessel (Gui), Early Western Zhou dynasty. Width across handles 9¼ in., 23.8 cm. Estimate: 15,000 - 20,000 USD. Lot sold: 44,100 USD. © Sothebys.

Literature: Rose Kerr et al., Chinese Antiquities from the Wou Kiuan Collection. Wou Lien-Pai Museum, Hong Kong, 2011, pl. 8.

Note: The cast vertical bands of decoration seen on the present gui belong to a distinctive type of late Shang and Western Zhou designs, classified by Jessica Rawson as 'quilled triple band', see Jessica Rawson, Western Zhou Ritual Bronzes from the Arthur M. Sackler Collections, vol. IIB, Washington D.C., 1990, pp 381-2.

Compare a similar ribbed gui in the Indianapolis Museum of Art, illustrated in Yutaka Mino and James Robinson, Beauty and Tranquility: The Eli Lilly Collection of Chinese Art, Indianapolis, 1993, pl. 31, where the author notes that mold fragments containing ribbed design segments similar to the present example have been discovered in the vicinity of Luoyang, see ibid., p. 112. Another example in the Idemitsu Museum of Art, Tokyo, is illustrated in Ancient Chinese Art in the Idemitsu Collection, Tokyo, 1989, pl. 22.

Sotheby's. A Journey Through China's History. The Dr Wou Kiuan Collection Part 1, New York, 22 March 2022