THE PROPERTY OF A LADY
A VERY RARE GILT-SILVER BIRD VESSEL, the shallow bud-shaped bowl with an openwork griffon's head on one side, the shaped narrow wing-like border to the cup gilt, late Eastern Zhou/Warring States

Details
A VERY RARE GILT-SILVER BIRD VESSEL, the shallow bud-shaped bowl with an openwork griffon's head on one side, the shaped narrow wing-like border to the cup gilt, late Eastern Zhou/Warring States
10.7cm wide
Provenance
Frederick M. Mayer Collection, sold in these Rooms, 25 June 1974, lot 172
Exhibited
Art of the Eastern Chou, China House, New York, 1962, No.69, 'Animal Style', Art from East to West, Asia House, New York, 1970, No.75 (illustrated)

Lot Essay

Similar cups are in the Seattle Museum and the Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, Winthrop Collection (52.80B). Umehara published a similar cup in Rakujo Kinson shuei, pl.XLIV. Cf. also the Kempe Collection example with the characteristic achaemenid lobes on its side illustrated as no.76, Bo Gyllensvard, Chinese Gold and Silver in the Carl Kempe Collection, Catalogue, no.76. Cf. also B.M.F.E.A. no.4, Pl.XVI, 1a and b

Compare also the lobed dish but without the griffon's head illustrated in Zhonguo Meishu Quanji, 1987, no.10, attributed to the Warring States Period, as well as the treatment of the ears on a gilt bronze chariot fitting of the Western Han period, illustrated in Eskanazi, Inlaid bronze and related material from pre-Tang China, 1991, p.68

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