Live Auction 18338Masterpieces of Early Chinese Gold and Silver
A VERY FINE PETAL-LOBED SILVER STEM CUP
Lot 549

A VERY FINE PETAL-LOBED SILVER STEM CUP

TANG DYNASTY (AD 618-907)

Closed12 September 2019

Price Realised

USD 187,500

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A VERY FINE PETAL-LOBED SILVER STEM CUP
TANG DYNASTY (AD 618-907)
The small bowl is divided into eight petal-shaped lobes, each delicately engraved with birds including ducks, geese and a parrot amidst rocks and trees in a landscape, the birds shown either in flight, or alternately looking towards or away from each other, all against a very fine ring-punched ground above engraved lotus petals rising from the stem foot with spreading, petal-lobed base similarly decorated with bands of foliate scrolls.
2 ¾ in. (6.9 cm.) diam.; weight 85 g

Dr. Johan Carl Kempe (1884-1967) Collection, Sweden, before 1953, no. CK110.
Sotheby's London, Masterpieces of Chinese Precious Metalwork. Early Gold and Silver, 14 May 2008, lot 40.

Specialist note

Silver stem cups of this elegant, lobed shape, where the lobes continue up to a slightly everted edge, are very rare. A very similar stem cup from the collection of Martin Mansson was sold at Christie's London, 10 May 2011, lot 178. The Mansson cup was referenced by Gyllensvärd in his various catalogues of the Kempe Collection as a comparable of the present cup. Another cup of this shape, decorated with hunting motifs, dated to the 8th century, is in the Hakutsuru Art Museum and illustrated by Ryoichi Hayashi, The Silk Road and the Shoso-in, New York/Tokyo, 1975, p. 86, pl. 88.