17TH/18TH CENTURY

Details

**AN UNUSUAL RHINOCEROS HORN LIBATION CUP
17TH/18TH CENTURY
Well carved on one side with a groom standing beside a horse with head lowered as it grazes behind a large rock in a landscape of rocks and various trees divided by a stream below the spout, on the reverse another horse stands with head turned backwards near a vertical outcropping of rock that forms part of the handle along with the trunk of a willow tree, its leafy branches spreading along the rim and then over the edge onto the interior, of deep reddish-brown color
6¼ in. (15.9 cm.) long, box

Lot Essay

Horses are infrequently seen as a motif on rhinoceros horn cups. A cup decorated with wild horses in the Chester Beatty Library is illustrated by J. Chapman, The Art of Rhinoceros Horn Carving in China, London, 1999, p. 180, no. 238, where the author notes that when depicted they are either shown being ridden or as wild in a landscape. On the present cup, the two horses are in a landscape setting but being tended by a groom. Another cup in the collection of Thomas Fok, which depicts the Eight Horses of King Mu in a landscape with a groom, is illustrated in his book, Connoisseurship of Rhinoceros Horn Carving in China, 1999, pp. 228-9, no. 168.

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