A RARE SILVER STEM CUP

TANG DYNASTY (AD 618-907)

Details

A RARE SILVER STEM CUP
TANG DYNASTY (AD 618-907)
The goblet-form cup is raised on a short, knopped stem foot with spreading base decorated with foliate scroll, and the sides are finely chased with scrolling, leafy and flowering vines, interspersed with birds in flight executed in very fine ring-punching, all against a ring-punched ground.
2 3/8 in. (6 cm.) high; weight 47.7 g

Provenance

Dr. Johan Carl Kempe (1884-1967) Collection, Sweden, before 1953, CK103.
Sotheby's London, Masterpieces of Chinese Precious Metalwork. Early Gold and Silver, 14 May 2008, lot 66.

Literature

Bo Gyllensvärd, Chinese Gold and Silver in the Carl Kempe Collection, Stockholm, 1953, cat. no. 103.
Bo Gyllensvärd, ‘T’ang Gold and Silver’, Bulletin of the Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities, No. 29, Stockholm, 1957, fig. 25e.
Han Wei, Hai nei wai Tangdai jin yin qi cui bian, [Tang Gold and Silver in Chinese and overseas collections], Xi’an, 1989, pl. 44.
Chinese Gold and Silver in the Carl Kempe Collection, The Museum of Art and Far Eastern Antiquities in Ulricehamn, Ulricehamn, 1999, pl. 105.

Exhibited

Washington, D.C., Smithsonian Institution, Chinese Gold and Silver in the Carl Kempe Collection, 1954-55, cat no. 103.

Lot Essay

The goblet shape of this stem cup appears to be very rare. Another cup of this shape with similar decoration in the Yamato Bunkakan, Nara, Japan, is illustrated by Qi Dongfang, Tangdai jin yin qi yan jiu (Research on Tang gold and silver), Beijing, 1999, pl. 2, and again in a line drawing, p. 41, fig. 1-54. The flowers and leaves appear similar to those on the present cup, and one can see in pl. 2 that there are birds in flight amidst the scrolling vine, however they are chased or engraved and not ring-punched as they are on the present cup.

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