Lot 718. A bronze ritual wine vessel and cover, you, Early Western Zhou dynasty, 10th-9th century BC; The vessel 6 1⁄4 in. (16 cm.) high. Price realised USD 163,800 (Estimate USD 60,000 – USD 80,000). © Christie's 2022

The bulbous body is cast on either side with a small ram's-head in relief between double lines, and the swing handle terminates at either side with an animal-head. The plain cover is cast with a circular finial. The interior of the vessel and cover are both cast with an inscription.

Property from the Estate of Don B Lichty, Honolulu.

Provenance: Collection of Arthur B. Michael, Newton Center, Massachusetts.
The Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York, 1942, no. 1942:16:392.
Property of the Albright-Knox Art Gallery vol. 2;Sotheby's New York, 20 March 2007, lot 514.
J. J. Lally & Co., New York, 29 June 2007.

Literature: Chen Mengjia, Mei diguo zhuyi jieliao de wo guo Yin Zhou tongqi jilu, Beijing, 1962.
Chen Mengjia, Yin Zhou qingtongqi fenlei tulu (In Shu seidoki bunrui zuroku; A Corpus of Chinese Bronzes in American Collections), Tokyo, 1977, A 629, pl. 886, rubbing nos. 387a and b.
S. A. Nash, K. Kline, C. Kotik and E. Wood, Albright-Knox Art Gallery: Painting and Sculpture from Antiquity to 1942, Buffalo, 1979, p. 100.

Exhibited: New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Chinese Bronzes of the Shang through the T'ang Dynasty, 1938, no. 169.

Note: The inscriptions cast on the inside of the cover and the base of the vessel read Yuan zuo jia (Yuan made (this) vessel).

The present you belongs to a group of vessels from the early Western Zhou period that are generally left undecorated. A you of similar proportions and decoration is illustrated by R.W. Bagley, in Western Zhou Ritual Bronzes in the Arthur M. Sackler Collections, Washington, D.C., 1990, fig. 72.3, which is dated to the early Western Zhou period.

Christie's. Important Chinese Ceramics and Works of Art, New York, 25 march 2022