A FINE AND RARE SMALL SILVER BOWL
A FINE AND RARE SMALL SILVER BOWL
A FINE AND RARE SMALL SILVER BOWL
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A FINE AND RARE SMALL SILVER BOWL

LATE WARRING STATES PERIOD, 3RD-2ND CENTURY BC

Details
A FINE AND RARE SMALL SILVER BOWL
LATE WARRING STATES PERIOD, 3RD-2ND CENTURY BC
The small bowl is of lobed heart shape with a flat bottom. The shallow, rounded sides are decorated in repoussé with a row of inverted 'water drops'. A short handle in the form of a raptor head with gold eyes projects from the rim on one side.
2 ½ in. (6.3 cm.) wide; weight 40 g
Provenance
Dr. Johan Carl Kempe (1884-1967) Collection, Sweden, before 1953, no. CK76.
Sotheby's London, Masterpieces of Chinese Precious Metalwork. Early Gold and Silver, 14 May 2008, lot 22.
Literature
Bo Gyllensvärd, Chinese Gold and Silver in the Carl Kempe Collection, Stockholm, 1953, cat. no. 76.
Chinese Gold and Silver in the Carl Kempe Collection, The Museum of Art and Far Eastern Antiquities in Ulricehamn, Ulricehamn, 1999, pl. 79.
Exhibited
Washington, D.C., Smithsonian Institution, Chinese Gold and Silver in the Carl Kempe Collection, 1954-55, cat. no. 76.
New York, Asia House Gallery, Chinese Gold, Silver and Porcelain. The Kempe Collection, 1971, cat. no. 33, an exhibition touring the United States and shown also at nine other museums.

Lot Essay

The unusual raptor-head handle and the heart-shape of the present cup can also be seen in a similar silver wine cup of larger size (10.7 x 10.5 cm.) in The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, attributed to North-central China, 4th-3rd century BC, illustrated by Jenny F. So and Emma C. Bunker, Traders and Raiders on China's Northern Frontier, Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Washington, D.C,, 1995, pp. 152-53, no. 73. (Fig. 1) This cup, and another like it illustrated by Mizuno Seiichi, Bronzes and Jades of Ancient China, Tokyo. 1959, p. 154B, has plain rather than the lobed sides of the Kempe cup. Also illustrated by Mizuno, pl. 154A, are two silver cups of heart shape, one with handles, and all are said to come from Jincun. The same heart shape, as well as an upright handle in the shape of a bird's head can be seen in a small lacquer ladle dated Western Han, illustrated in Lacquerware from the Warring States to the Han Period Excavated in Hubei Province, Hubei Provincial Museum/The Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1994, no. 58. See, also, the small jade cup of this shape with carved sides illustrated by Thomas Lawton, Chinese Art of the Warring States Period, Freer Gallery of Art, 1982, p. 156, no. 103.

The water-drop or petal-shaped lobed decoration on the sides of this rare silver cup can be found on other silver vessels made both in Achaemenid Persia (550-300 BC), such as the phiale (shallow drinking bowl) with inscription in the Freer Gallery of Art, illustrated by Zhixin Jason Sun, Age of Empires: Art of the Qin and Han Dynasties, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 2017, p. 173, fig. 75, and the parcel-gilt silver circular box with cover (5 3/16 in. diam.), dated Western Han dynasty (206 BC-AD 9), excavated in 1994 from the tomb of the prince of Chu, Beidongshan, Xuzhou, Jiangsu province, also illustrated by Sun, pp. 172-73, no. 94. A similar box with cover is illustrated in Nanyue King's Tomb of the Western Han, vol. II, Beijing, 1991, pl. XXIII (1).



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