A 3,500-year-old Chinese bronze owl-shaped wine jar sells for over US$1.5 million at Christie’s auction
- Called a zun, the jar was probably used by Shang dynasty aristocrats during important ceremonies
- It is also similar to two owl zuns found in the tomb of Lady Fuhao, an iconic figure in Chinese history
A rare bronze Chinese wine jar that may be upwards of 3,500 years sold for US$1.52 million at a Christie’s online auction on Wednesday.
Tiphaine Nicoul, the head of Christie’s Asian art department, speculated that the piece could have belonged to royalty.
“This bronze is very close in style, quality, structure and design to bronzes found in royal tombs so we think that this piece was made for an important, high-ranked person, or even a member of royalty,” she said.
It is nearly identical to a zun excavated from Shang-era Xibeigang royal tombs in the central province of Henan.
It is also similar to two owls found at the tomb of Lady Fuhao excavated in 1976. Fuhao was the first known female general in Chinese history and is a towering figure from ancient China.
Robert D. Mowry, a curator of Chinese arts for Harvard Art Museums, wrote for Christie’s: “Though its exact function remains unknown, one can picture it resting majestically on an altar and containing the wine that would be used in the ceremonies.”
Animal-shaped artefacts are common in Shang dynasty relics, including an iconic rhinoceros zun housed at the San Francisco Asian Art Museum and a ram-inspired container that sold for US$27.1 million in 2017.
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