A BRONZE RITUAL FOOD VESSEL, GUI

The gui is one of the classic vessel shapes that was inherited from the Shang dynasty. Like the ding they were meant to hold food during rituals.

The present gui has the characteristic S-shaped profile. The arrangement of the decoration, i.e. the use of a decorative band below the rim and another encircling the foot while the belly of the bowl remains undecorated, is a type that is seen during the early Western Zhou period. Two gui of early Western Zhou date illustrated by Jessica Rawson in Western Zhou Ritual Bronzes from the Arthur M. Sackler Collections, vol. IIB, The Arthur M. Sackler Foundation, Washington, D.C., 1990, pp. 410-15, nos. 50 and 51, are also of this type, and have bands of similar dragons below the rim and encircling the similar type of foot, but rather than being reserved on a leiwen ground as on the present vessel, the dragons on the Sackler gui are on an undecorated ground.