TANG DYNASTY (AD 618-907)

Details

A FINE SMALL PARCEL-GILT SILVER QUATREFOIL CUP
TANG DYNASTY (AD 618-907)
The oblong cup is formed as four bracket-lobed petals, each finely engraved on the exterior with a pair of geese, each pair shown confronting each other on either side of a foliate motif, the two pairs on the long sides shown standing and the two pairs at the ends shown in flight, all against a ring-punched ground, the details highlighted in gilding.
2 ¼ in. ( 5.7 cm.) wide; weight 27.5 g

Provenance

Dr. Johan Carl Kempe (1884-1967) Collection, Sweden, before 1953, no. CK95.
Sotheby's London, Masterpieces of Chinese Precious Metalwork. Early Gold and Silver, 14 May 2008, lot 53.

Literature

Bo Gyllensvärd, Chinese Gold and Silver in the Carl Kempe Collection, Stockholm, 1953, cat. no. 95.
Bo Gyllensvärd, ‘T’ang Gold and Silver’, Bulletin of the Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities, No. 29, Stockholm, 1957, pl. 11b, fig. 68c, fig. 69a.
Han Wei, Hai nei wai Tangdai jin yin qi cui bian, [Tang Gold and Silver in Chinese and overseas collections], Xi’an, 1989, pl. 82.
Chinese Gold and Silver in the Carl Kempe Collection, The Museum of Art and Far Eastern Antiquities in Ulricehamn, Ulricehamn, 1999, pl. 97.
Qi Dongfang, Tangdai jin yin qi yan jiu [Research on Tang gold and silver], Beijing, 1999, pl. 19.

Exhibited

Washington, D.C., Smithsonian Institution, Chinese Gold and Silver in the Carl Kempe Collection, 1954-1955, cat. no. 95.
New York, Asia House Gallery, Chinese Gold, Silver and Porcelain. The Kempe Collection, 1971, cat. no. 43, an exhibition touring the United States and shown also at nine other museums.
Oxford, Ashmolean Museum, From Silver to Ceramic, the Potter’s Debt to Metal Work in the Graeco-Roman, Oriental and Islamic Worlds, 1986, pl. 31 (bottom).

Lot Essay

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.

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