TANG DYNASTY (AD 618-907)

This elegant, parcel-gilt silver ladle, with its lobed oval bowl and engraved and chased decoration of birds amidst floral scrolls reserved on a fine ring-punched ground on the exterior, is similar to several other published examples, including the example in The Art Institute of Chicago, illustrated by Clarence W. Kelley, Chinese Gold and Silver in American Collections, The Dayton Art Institute, Dayton, Ohio, 1984, no. 10 (Fig. 1); one in the Seattle Art Museum included in the exhibition, The Arts of the T'ang Dynasty, Los Angeles County Museum, 1957, no. 348; and one originally in the collections of Mrs. Christian R. Holmes and the Hon. Senator Hugh Scott, subsequently sold at Christie's New York, 2-4 December 1982, lot 399, and later illustrated in Chinesisches Gold und Silber: Die Sammlung Pierre Uldry, Zurich, 1994, pp. 166-67, no. 157. All of these also have a similar slender, curved handle that terminates in the small head of a bird.