A FINE SMALL PARCEL-GILT SILVER QUATREFOIL CUP

Cups of this oblong, quatrefoil shape appear to be rare. One raised on a higher foot, in the Pierre Uldry Collection, is illustrated in Chinesisches Gold und Silber, Zurich, 1994, p. 152, pl. 138. A larger (11.7 cm. long) quadrilobed bowl with rounded sides, rather than barbed petal lobes, decorated on the exterior with foliate scroll on a ring-punched ground, but raised on a low, quadrilobed foot, in The Frederick M. Mayer Collection of Chinese Art, was sold at Christie's London, 24-25 June 1974, lot 167. A plain beaten silver quadrilobed bowl with straight, flared sides, its lobes formed by indentations, in the collection of Mr. and Mrs. Rafi Y. Mottahedeh, is illustrated by Dr. Paul Singer, Early Chinese Gold & Silver, China Institute in America, New York, 1971, p. 58, no. 78, where it is dated Tang.

Bowls of lobed oblong shape are more often found with eight lobes, and of larger size, such as the example in the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, The Avery Brundage Collection, illustrated by Clarence W. Kelley, Tang Dynasty, Chinese Gold & Silver in American Collections, The Dayton Art Institute, Dayton, Ohio, 1984, p. 65, no. 31. Another with eight lobes (15.2 cm. long) is illustrated in Sui to no bijutsu, Osaka Municipal Art Museum, 1976, no. 2-16. The origins of these lobed, oval bowls appear to be Sassanian, as evidenced by the parcel-gilt silver, lobed elliptical bowl raised on a slightly flared, oval foot ring, dated 6th century, illustrated by Ann C. Gunter and Paul Jett, Ancient Iranian Metalwork in the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery and the Freer Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1992, p. 182, pl. 31.