An exceptionally rare Western Zhou bronze, taken when the Summer Palace was sacked by British troops in 1860, has been discovered in a house in a Kent seaside town.
Only six similar archaic vessels, or ying, are known to exist. The discovery, a seventh with previously unrecorded decoration, will be sold by the Canterbury Auction Galleries on April 11, estimated at £120,000-200,000.
Dating from the period 1027-771BC (the pottery core of the handle and one foot have been subjected to a thermo-luminescence test in Oxford), the vessel has been christened ‘the tiger ying’ – a reference to the auspicious felines that adorn the spout and cover.