1 A fine archaic bronze wine vessel (zun) Early Western Zhou period Height: 10 1/4 in, 26 cm from a spreading modelled foot, the sides rise to a swollen mid-section and columnar neck and terminate in a widely flared mouth with a modelled lip. The main register of ornament consists of two crisply cast taotie masks with prominent eyes, each mask being divided by a subtle flange; this decoration is bordered by bands of circles in thread relief. The neck is left plain and is encircled by two bowstring lines. The foot is neatly decorated with a narrow register of three rows of fine scrolling divided into four sections that form two taotie masks, all below a bowstring line. The interior foot bears a two-character inscription, the first character reading zi (son). The bronze bears an attractive natural patina with areas of green encrustation.

It is rare to find such a finely cast and incised vessel of the early Western Zhou period. Rawson illustrates a related vessel, but less well cast, in Western Zhou Ritual Bronzes from the Arthur M. Sackler Collections, Vol. IIB, no. 78, pp. 544–7, and note fig. 78.2, a zun from the Ashmolean Museum with similar decoration to the foot. For further examples, lacking the decoration to the foot, see Wang, Beijing Relics, no. 43, p. 27, excavated from a tomb at Liulihe and now in the collection of the Capital Museum, Beijing; Ma et al, Treasures from the Shanghai Museum, no. 28, p. 78; and Kao, Masterworks of Chinese Bronze in the National Palace Museum, Supplement, no. 23, dated Shang.