Lot Essay
Previously sold in these Rooms, Masterworks of Chinese Art sale, 5 November 1997, lot 1015.
This unusual vase appears to be carved using three separate rhinoceros horn sections, elegantly shaped to form an archaistic beaker vase, known as a gu. It is very rare to find an expertly carved archaistic-shaped example of such substantial size and quality of material as the present vase. Traditionally, properties of rhinoceros horns were supposedly able to detect poison, which could explain the quantity of such carvings found as libation cups usually of rhyton form.
Compare with a similar but much smaller (13.8 cm. high) gu vase in the Chester Beatty Library, illustrated by J. Chapman, The Art of Rhinoceros Horn Carving in China, 1999, fig. 185. For other archaistic examples of rhinoceros carvings, cf. a tripod censer, ding, in the Morisada Hosogawa Collection is also illustrated, op. cit., fig. 187; a small censer raised on three bladed dragon-form legs, sold in our New York Rooms, 1 June 19990, lot 80; a wine vessel, jue, raised on three truncated blade feet from the Arthur M. Sackler Collection, sold in our New York Rooms, 1 December 1994, lot 2; and another jue sold in New York, 2 March 1995, lot 68.
(US$115,000-150,000)
This unusual vase appears to be carved using three separate rhinoceros horn sections, elegantly shaped to form an archaistic beaker vase, known as a gu. It is very rare to find an expertly carved archaistic-shaped example of such substantial size and quality of material as the present vase. Traditionally, properties of rhinoceros horns were supposedly able to detect poison, which could explain the quantity of such carvings found as libation cups usually of rhyton form.
Compare with a similar but much smaller (13.8 cm. high) gu vase in the Chester Beatty Library, illustrated by J. Chapman, The Art of Rhinoceros Horn Carving in China, 1999, fig. 185. For other archaistic examples of rhinoceros carvings, cf. a tripod censer, ding, in the Morisada Hosogawa Collection is also illustrated, op. cit., fig. 187; a small censer raised on three bladed dragon-form legs, sold in our New York Rooms, 1 June 19990, lot 80; a wine vessel, jue, raised on three truncated blade feet from the Arthur M. Sackler Collection, sold in our New York Rooms, 1 December 1994, lot 2; and another jue sold in New York, 2 March 1995, lot 68.
(US$115,000-150,000)