A BRONZE RITUAL VESSEL 'LI'

Estimated Value:

3.000 € - 5.000 €

Schätzpreis:

Description:

China, Western Zhou dynasty
D. 16 cm
The tri-lobed body is supported on three hoof-shaped feet, and cast on the sides with raised vertical lines divided by plain horizontal bands and narrow flanges.
Important Austrian private collection, purchased according to notes from Gallery Asboth, Vienna in the 1990s from an old Viennese private collection
Publ. Zeileis 'From Shang to Qing - Three and a Half Millennia of Chinese Bronze', 1999, no. 15, pp. 44 - 45
Li with striated decoration were inspired by pottery prototypes and were popular during the middle to late Western Zhou dynasty. A set of five similar li vessels with Wei Bo inscriptions was found in a hoard in Zhuangbai village, Fufeng county, Shaanxi province, and illustrated by Wu Zhenfeng in Shangzhou qingtongqi mingwen ji tuxiang jicheng (Complete Collection of Inscriptions and Images of the Shang and Zhou Bronzes), vol. 6, Shanghai, 2012, pp. 85-89, nos. 2702-2706. The Wei Bo li have more slender legs and taller proportions than the present li and can be dated by inscription to the latter part of the middle Western Zhou dynasty.
Compare related examples excavated from mid-Western Zhou sites in Shaanxi province, illustrated in Jessica Rawson, Western Zhou Ritual Bronzes from the Arthur M. Sackler Collections, vol. IIB, Washington, D.C., 1990, pp. 322-323, figs. 27. 2 and 27.4. Compare also a li of similar size and design, from the Arthur M. Sackler Collections, illustrated ibid., pp. 330-331, no. 27
Wear to rim, partly corroded

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