Provenance: Sir Michael Oppenheimer (3rd Baronet, 1924-2020) and Lady Helen Oppenheimer DD (1926-2022), and thence by descent

Note: The collection belonged to Sir Michael and Lady Oppenheimer DD (3rd Baronet, 1924-2020). Sir Michael's maternal grandparents were Sir Robert Grenville Harvey, 2nd Baronet (1856-1931) and Lady Emily Blanche Harvey (1872-1935) of Langley Park, Buckinghamshire. The Chinese art collection can be, at least in part, traced back to Langley Park, Buckinghamshire, home to the Harvey Baronets from 1788 until 1945, as demonstrated in a pre-1945 photograph showing Lot 122, the cloisonné enamel tripod 'elephant' incense burner, Qianlong.

Sir Michael Oppenheimer's paternal family was the well-known South African mining family. The baronetcy was created in 1921 for Bernard Oppenheimer, Chairman of the South African Diamond Corporation for setting up diamond sorting factories to employ wounded ex-servicemen after the First World War. The family has been involved with De Beers over many decades. Lady Oppenheimer DD (1926-2022) was a distinguished moral and philosophical theologian, with a particular interest in the ethics pertaining to personal relationships.

This rare zoomorphic vessel is based on ancient prototypes which originated from at least as early as the Western Zhou dynasty. Tapir-form bronze vessels of this type began to appear in greater numbers in the Eastern Zhou dynasty; compare with a tapir-form vessel, Spring and Autumn or Warring States period, finely inlaid with gold and silver geometric designs, illustrated in Masterworks of Chinese Bronze in the National Palace Museum, Taipei, 1969, pl.25.

The examples from the Bronze Age appear to have found favour with the Northern Song Emperor Huizong (reigned 1100-1126), who was a very keen antiquarian and who instigated the publication of illustrated catalogues of the items in his collection. One of these, the 'Xuanhe Illustrated Collection of Antiques' Xuanhe Bogu tulu, included an illustration of such an early bronze vessel. While the original edition would not have been readily available to later craftsmen, it was reprinted on a number of occasions, and the illustration of this zoomorphic vessel appears, for example, in the 1528 edition, known as the Bogu tulu.

The name xizun appears in both the Bo gu tu, compiled during the Northern Song dynasty, and the 'Catalogue of the Antiquities in the Xiqing Pavilion', Xiqing gu jian, compiled in the eighteenth century. The word xi meaning 'sacrificial victim', often refers to an ox or another animal.

Vessels shaped as tapirs are often dated to the Yuan and Ming dynasties. See, for example, a related bronze 'tapir' vessel inlaid with gold and silver, Yuan dynasty, from the collection of the Saint Louis Art Museum, Saint Louis (acc.no.273:1919), illustrated by P.K.Hu, Later Chinese Bronzes: The Saint Louis Art Museum and Robert E. Kresko Collections, St. Louis, 2008, p.45, fig.3, and another Ming dynasty example, similarly inlaid in gold and silver, in the collection of the Cernuschi Museum, Paris, acc.no.M.C.583.

A related gold and silver-inlaid bronze tapir-form vessel, Yuan/Ming dynasty, was sold at Christie's New York, 25 September 2020, lot 1538.