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Lot Essay
The cup:
Cups of this type were made as early as the Song dynasty, and a Southern Song example was exhibited at the Nezu Institute in The Colors and Forms of Song and Yuan China - Featuring Lacquerwares, Ceramics, and Metalwares, Nezu Institute of Fine Arts, Tokyo, 2004, no. 65. Slightly wider bowls, with silver liners, and carved in a similar style to the current example were excavated from a Song tomb in Shaozhou county, Jiangsu, in 1977 (illustrated in Wenwu, 1981, no. 8, p. 39). A similar tixi lacquer cup from the collection of Sir Harry Garner in the British Museum is illustrated in Chinese and Associated Lacquer from the Garner Collection, British Museum, London, 1973, pl. 5a, no. 10. The Garner cup is dated to the 14th or 15th century, and like the current vessel has been carved with wide, v-shaped grooves through bands of red and black lacquer down to a buff-coloured ground. While the shape of the ruyi heads on the two cups differ somewhat, their disposition is similar. Both cups also have fine silvered liners and have a groove around the base to allow fitment of additional metal band around the foot.
The cup stand:
On the base of this stand is a red lacquer mark composed of two characters in a double rectangle. The characters are Cheng Wu, which may be translated as Sincere Wu, and is probably the name of the workshop that made the piece.
Cup stands of this form are rare in tixi lacquer, and seem to have been particularly popular in the late 14th and early 15th century and in the Qing dynasty. The basic shape can be traced to the Tang dynasty and two such saucer-type circular cup stands are among the set of twelve stone Tang dynasty tea utensils preserved in the National Museum of Natural Science, Taiwan (illustrated in Empty Vessels, Replenished Minds: The Culture, Practice, and Art of Tea, National Palace Museum, Taipei, 2002, p. 29, no. 5).
Cups of this type were made as early as the Song dynasty, and a Southern Song example was exhibited at the Nezu Institute in The Colors and Forms of Song and Yuan China - Featuring Lacquerwares, Ceramics, and Metalwares, Nezu Institute of Fine Arts, Tokyo, 2004, no. 65. Slightly wider bowls, with silver liners, and carved in a similar style to the current example were excavated from a Song tomb in Shaozhou county, Jiangsu, in 1977 (illustrated in Wenwu, 1981, no. 8, p. 39). A similar tixi lacquer cup from the collection of Sir Harry Garner in the British Museum is illustrated in Chinese and Associated Lacquer from the Garner Collection, British Museum, London, 1973, pl. 5a, no. 10. The Garner cup is dated to the 14th or 15th century, and like the current vessel has been carved with wide, v-shaped grooves through bands of red and black lacquer down to a buff-coloured ground. While the shape of the ruyi heads on the two cups differ somewhat, their disposition is similar. Both cups also have fine silvered liners and have a groove around the base to allow fitment of additional metal band around the foot.
The cup stand:
On the base of this stand is a red lacquer mark composed of two characters in a double rectangle. The characters are Cheng Wu, which may be translated as Sincere Wu, and is probably the name of the workshop that made the piece.
Cup stands of this form are rare in tixi lacquer, and seem to have been particularly popular in the late 14th and early 15th century and in the Qing dynasty. The basic shape can be traced to the Tang dynasty and two such saucer-type circular cup stands are among the set of twelve stone Tang dynasty tea utensils preserved in the National Museum of Natural Science, Taiwan (illustrated in Empty Vessels, Replenished Minds: The Culture, Practice, and Art of Tea, National Palace Museum, Taipei, 2002, p. 29, no. 5).