A RARE MINIATURE GILT-SILVER SHELL-FORM COSMETIC BOX

TANG DYNASTY, MID 8TH CENTURY

Details

A RARE MINIATURE GILT-SILVER SHELL-FORM COSMETIC BOX
Tang Dynasty, Mid 8th Century
Of naturalistic clam-shell shape, the punched-dot ground engraved and gilt with two flying cranes holding ribboned leafy sprays from their beaks on a ground of meandering lotus and floral scrolling to one side, and with two parrots similarly holding sprays on a scrolling floral ground to the other, a simple hinge joining the two halves, the interior plain
16in. (3.6cm.) across

Lot Essay

Excavation of the tomb of Li Jingyou, who was buried in 738, at Xingyuan Village near Yanshi, Henan, yielded a small gilt-silver shell-shaped box with floral scrolls, grasses and birds on a ring-stamped ground, see Kaogu, 1986, no. 5, pl. VIII, fig. 3 (right). A similar example is illustrated by Hugh Scott, The Golden Age of Chinese Art, Tokyo, 1970, fig. 11. Compare also, the examples from the Pierre Uldry Collection, Chinesiches Gold Und Silber, Zurich, 1994, p. 168, no. 161 with three little birds among foliage, and p. 169, no. 162, with phoenix among foliage. Another from the Arthur M. Sackler Collections, sold at Christie's, New York, December 1, 1994, lot 64. A slightly larger example, but without birds in the decoration from the British Rail Pension Fund, was sold at Sotheby's, London, December 12, 1989, lot 35.

For larger examples, one with squirrels and grapevines in the Kempe Collection, Sweden and another with a peacock and phoenix in the Freer Gallery, see Bo Gyllensvard, Chinese Gold, Silver and Porcelain: The Kempe Collection, Asia House Gallery, New York, 1971, Catalogue, pl. 61; and Freer Gallery of Art, Masterpieces of Chinese and Japanese Art, Washington D.C., 1976, p. 24 (top).

Other silver shell boxes with the hinge in a different location and also differently decorated have been exhibited: one in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Early Chinese Gold & Silver, China Institute, New York, October 21, 1971 - January 30, 1972, Catalogue, no. 69; and another in the Art Institute of Chicago, Tang Dynasty Chinese Gold & Silver in American Collections, Dayton Art Institute, Dayton, Ohio, 1984, Catalogue, no. 40.