Ca. 1045 - 771 BC. Western Zhou Dynasty. A beautiful bronze ritual food vessel, ‘gui’. The broad rounded body stands on a splayed foot and is decorated with whorl and geometric design bands to the body and to the foot. Two ram-headed C-scroll handles are attached on the side. A ‘gui’ is a type of bowl-shaped ancient Chinese ritual bronze vessel used to hold offerings of food for ancestral tombs. As with other shapes, the ritual bronzes followed early pottery versions for domestic use, and were recalled in later art in both metal, pottery, and sometimes stone. The shape changed somewhat over the centuries, but constant characteristics are a circular form, with a rounded, wide, profile or shape from the side, standing on a narrower rim or foot. There are usually two, or sometimes four, handles, and there may be a cover or a square base (or both). The Kang Hou Gui, an 11th-century BC example in the British Museum was chosen as object 23 in the A History of the World in 100 Objects. For more information, see Shih, Hsio- Yen (ed.) (1986). Ancient Chinese Bronzes. Oxford University Press.Size: L:150mm / W:350mm ; 1.7kgProvenance: UK Private Collection; formerly acquired in the early 1990s in Hong Kong.