AN ENGRAVED SILVER STEM CUP

Details
AN ENGRAVED SILVER STEM CUP
TANG DYNASTY

Of goblet form, the sides of the deep cup finely engraved with a wide band of scrolling, flowering tendrils divided from narrow borders of similar scroll by a raised bowstring band above and a slender line below, the recessed socle below encircled by a dogtooth border and decorated underneath with a band of lotus petals, raised on a knopped stem decorated with further foliate scroll, all reserved on a fine ring-matted ground--2 7/16in. (6.2cm.) high, fitted box
Provenance
Desmond Gure Collection, no. 85
Literature
Bo Gyllensvard, "T'ang Gold and Silver", B.M.F.E.A., No. 29, 1957, pl. 8(d)
R. Soame Jenyns, Chinese Art III, New York, 1980, no. 20
Exhibited
Venice, Mostra d'Arte Cinese, 1954, no. 272

Lot Essay

Other cups of this shape with varying foliate scroll decoration are in private and public collections, including one illustrated by Bo Gyllensvard, Chinese Gold & Silver in the Carl Kempe Collection, Stockholm, 1953, no. 102; one illustrated in Ancient Chinese Arts in the Idemitsu Collection, Tokyo, 1989, no. 320; one in the Collection of Senator Hugh Scott, illustrated in The Golden Age of Chinese Art, 1970, no. 18; and another in the collection of Ostasiatische Kunstabteilung, Berlin, included in the Exhibition of Chinese Art, Berlin, January 12-April 2, 1929, Catalogue no. 438

A cup of this form decorated with scrolling vines and grape leaves was unearthed from the reliquary chamber of the pagoda at the Qingshan Temple in Lindongxian, Shaanxi province. The construction of the temple was begun in 736, and in 740 the reliquary was placed in the subterranean chamber of the pagoda along with other objects of gold, silver, bronze and ceramic