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Lot Essay
The gold-inlaid inscription in bird script may be read as, Wang Sun Ming zhi yong ji (ji for the use of Wang Sun Ming). The name Wang Sun Ming is cited in Shang Zhou qingtongqi mingwen xuan (Selected Bronze Inscriptions from the Shang and Zhou), vol. 4, Beijing, 1990, p. 428, footnote no. 1, as being a person from the state of Chu.
According to Zhang Han in “Study on Gold Inlaid Bird Script Bronze Ge Daggers Unearthed from Wanrong,” Wenwu, 1962, nos. 4-5, pp. 35-36, this very decorative style of script is first seen on bronze weapons made in Southern China during the late Spring and Autumn period.
A set of three bronze daggers, comprised of a ji similar to the present example and two ge, was unearthed in 1978 from the tomb of the Marquis Yi of Zeng (c. 433-300 BC) in Leigudun, Suizhou, Hubei province, and is now in the Hubei Provincial Museum. Like the present ji, the three daggers are each inlaid in gold with an inscription in bird script reading, ‘Halberd for the use of Maquis Yi of Zeng’. The set is illustrated Zeng Hou Yi mu (Tomb of Marquis Yi of State Zeng), vols. I-II, Beijing, 1989, p. 267, no. 157 in. vol. I and pl. XCI in vol. II, and again in Zhongguo qingtongqi quanji: Dong Zhou, IV (Compendium of Chinese Bronzes: Easter Zhou, IV) vol. 10, Beijing, 1998, no. 170, with a description on p. 58. The set was published again recently by Fan J. Zhang and Jay Xu (eds.) in Phoenix Kingdoms: The Last Splender of China’s Bronze Age, Asian Art Museum, San Francisco, 2022, p. 155, no. 86, where a reconstruction of the weapon is also illustrated. As noted by Haicheng Wang in his entry for the set, the three blades were “originally mounted perpendicular to the eight-foot-long shaft of a spear. The one at top has a tang that extends through the shaft… The three blades were set in slots cut into the shaft and tied in place through slits in their long back edges… To avoid breakage, the shaft was made of a wooden core covered by bamboo strips and then wrapped with leather or rattan straps. It was further coated with lacquer and adorned with a horn fitting at its bottom.”
According to Zhang Han in “Study on Gold Inlaid Bird Script Bronze Ge Daggers Unearthed from Wanrong,” Wenwu, 1962, nos. 4-5, pp. 35-36, this very decorative style of script is first seen on bronze weapons made in Southern China during the late Spring and Autumn period.
A set of three bronze daggers, comprised of a ji similar to the present example and two ge, was unearthed in 1978 from the tomb of the Marquis Yi of Zeng (c. 433-300 BC) in Leigudun, Suizhou, Hubei province, and is now in the Hubei Provincial Museum. Like the present ji, the three daggers are each inlaid in gold with an inscription in bird script reading, ‘Halberd for the use of Maquis Yi of Zeng’. The set is illustrated Zeng Hou Yi mu (Tomb of Marquis Yi of State Zeng), vols. I-II, Beijing, 1989, p. 267, no. 157 in. vol. I and pl. XCI in vol. II, and again in Zhongguo qingtongqi quanji: Dong Zhou, IV (Compendium of Chinese Bronzes: Easter Zhou, IV) vol. 10, Beijing, 1998, no. 170, with a description on p. 58. The set was published again recently by Fan J. Zhang and Jay Xu (eds.) in Phoenix Kingdoms: The Last Splender of China’s Bronze Age, Asian Art Museum, San Francisco, 2022, p. 155, no. 86, where a reconstruction of the weapon is also illustrated. As noted by Haicheng Wang in his entry for the set, the three blades were “originally mounted perpendicular to the eight-foot-long shaft of a spear. The one at top has a tang that extends through the shaft… The three blades were set in slots cut into the shaft and tied in place through slits in their long back edges… To avoid breakage, the shaft was made of a wooden core covered by bamboo strips and then wrapped with leather or rattan straps. It was further coated with lacquer and adorned with a horn fitting at its bottom.”