Important Chinese Art

Important Chinese Art

View full screen - View 1 of Lot 194. A very rare archaic bronze ritual wine vessel (Zun), Early Western Zhou dynasty | 西周初 青銅素帶尊.

A very rare archaic bronze ritual wine vessel (Zun), Early Western Zhou dynasty | 西周初 青銅素帶尊

Auction Closed

March 17, 08:20 PM GMT

Estimate

80,000 - 120,000 USD

Lot Details

Description

A very rare archaic bronze ritual wine vessel (Zun)

Early Western Zhou dynasty

西周初 青銅素帶尊


well cast with the bulging central section rising from a splayed foot to a trumpet neck with an everted rim, adorned simply with three raised plain bands encircling the body, inscribed to the interior with an eight-character inscription reading Xi (possibly) Zhong zuo fu yi bao zun yi, the surface with malachite encrustation, Japanese wood boxes (5) 

銘文：

奚 (疑似) 仲作父乙寶尊彝


Height 8 in., 20.2 cm

Christie's Hong Kong, 1st December 2010, lot 3218.


This lot is accompanied by a certification note written by Zoroku Hata III in 1936. The box is inscribed with a note by Uzan Nagao (1864-1942) in the same year.


來源

香港佳士得2010年12月1日，編號3218


附三世藏六丙子年 (1936年) 鑑定書

日本盒蓋內長尾甲同年題識

This vessel is particularly unusual for its minimalist design, lacking surface decoration except for three raised ribs. Zun of this type are discussed by Jessica Rawson in Western Zhou Ritual Bronzes from the Arthur M. Sackler Collections, Washington D.C., 1990, p. 67, where she notes that plain vessels were recovered in the area of the Xing fief in Yuanshi county, Hebei province, and are datable to the latter part of the early Western Zhou period. Richly decorated vessels were also excavated at this site, suggesting that the two styles coexisted.

Two zun of this type in the National Museum of Asian Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington D.C., are illustrated in ibid., vol. IIB, pls 85 and 86, the first decorated with two ram’s heads and illustrated with two further examples, figs 85.1 and 85.2, the second with a plain surface; and two undecorated zun are illustrated in Jung Keng, ‘The Bronzes of Shang and Zhou’, Yenching Journal of Chinese Studies, Monograph Series no. 17, 1941, pls 523 and 543, together with one with a handle, pl. 532.