RARE ET IMPORTANT VASE RITUEL COUVERT EN BRONZE ARCHAÏQUE, FANG HUDynastie des Zhou Occidentaux (1050-771 avant J.-C) A VERY RARE AND LARGE ARCHAIC BRONZE RITUAL VESSEL AND A COVER, FANG HU Western Zhou Dynasty (1050-771 BC) Of rectangular pear-shaped form rising from a high pedestal foot, with a flattened body and straight rectangular neck decorated with a band of stylised birds set to each side with elephant-head handles, surmounted by a waisted rectangular cover, cast around the body with four disconnected parts of taotie masks between a band of serpentine designs and waves, the associated cover cast around the sides with a register of confronted kui -dragons below a wave pattern, the rich brown and greenish patina with some encrustations. 59cm (23 2/8in) high; without the cover 49.5cm (19 1/2in) high (2). Provenance: Robert Rousset, Paris (1901-1981); illustrated in Robert Rousset's Paris apartment photograph, circa 1950s Jean-Pierre Rousset, Paris (1936-2021) This exceptional large bronze vessel would have served as wine container. Its enormous proportions and elaborate decorative design give it a magnificent sense of dynamic motion. Ritual bronze vessels were among the most highly prized and technically sophisticated objects manufactured in early China. Reserved for use by the most powerful families of the time, they carried the offerings presented to the ancestors during the performance of rituals. Honoured andmemorated through the use of these precious vessels, the ancestral spirits were thought to confer blessings on their descendants while at the same time, the use of the vessel displayed to the living the power and wealth of their owners. In its traditional Shang and early Zhou forms, the taotie design was rectangular and somewhat out of place among ribboned birds and dragons, thus casters sought another type of taotie known as the dismembered taotie with the features of the face separated and built up of narrow ribbons. A number of large bronze vessels of rounded rectangular cross section, such as the present lot, with similar forms of taotie were greatly enlarged. The broad ribbons on the vessel are edged with narrow ones, abination also seen in the wave patterns on one of the Wei Bo Xing vessels. On the basis of thisparison, many of the large hu decorated with elephant-shaped handles and taotie masksposed of flat ribbons, such as the present lot, can be dated to the second half of the mid Western Zhou dynasty; see J.Rawson, Western Zhou Ritual Bronzes from the Arthur M.Sackler Collections , vol.IIA, Cambridge MA, 1990, pp.89 and 90-91, figs.132 and 133 for two similar bronze fang hu vessels flanked by elephant handles, late Western Zhou dynasty, the latter in the Shaanxi Provincial Museum. Another similar bronze vessel, late Western Zhou dynasty, but missing its cover and without the stylised phoenix register around the shoulders, f