An archaic bronze ritual food vessel (Gui), Western Zhou dynasty | 西周 青銅饕餮紋簋

Japanese Private Collection. 

Christie's New York, 30th March 2005, lot 231. 

日本私人收藏

紐約佳士得2005年3月30日，編號231

The present gui is extremely rare on account of the dragon roundel cast to the underside of the base. For other gui examples cast with similar dragon roundels, see two illustrated in Xueqin Li and Sarah Allan, Chinese Bronzes: A Selection from European Collections, Beijing, 1995, pls 85 A-D and 86 A-C, the former in the Museum for East Asian Arts, Cologne; the rubbing of a dragon roundel of a third is illustrated in Zou An, Zhou jinwen cun [Surviving bronze inscriptions from the Zhou dynasty], vol. 3, Shanghai, 1916, no. 94. Compare another gui, also in the Museum, but with a roundel of two dragons, one of smaller size next to the other's tail and with a zi character cast to the head of the larger dragon, illustrated in ibid., pls 84 A-B. Interestingly, in 1985, an excavation of a Shang dynasty tomb in the village of Jingjie, Lingshi county, Shanxi province, revealed a gui cast with a mule to the underside of the base, illustrated in 'Shanxi lingshi jingjie cun shang mu', Wenwu, 1986, vol. 11, figs 4, 6, and 8-2.