Lot 553
553
A FINE AND RARE LARGE SILVER LADLE
A FINE AND RARE LARGE SILVER LADLE
A FINE AND RARE LARGE SILVER LADLE
3 More
A FINE AND RARE LARGE SILVER LADLE
6 More
A FINE AND RARE LARGE SILVER LADLE

TANG DYNASTY (AD 618-907)

Details
A FINE AND RARE LARGE SILVER LADLE
TANG DYNASTY (AD 618-907)
The deep, petal-lobed bowl is finely engraved on the exterior with three birds amidst leafy foliate scroll on a minutely ring-punched ground, and the long handle is decorated with further foliate scroll and terminates in a bird's head.
10 ¼ in. (26 cm.) long; weight 67.5 g
Provenance
Dr. Johan Carl Kempe (1884-1967) Collection, Sweden, before 1953, no. CK105.
Sotheby's London, Masterpieces of Chinese Precious Metalwork. Early Gold and Silver, 14 May 2008, lot 62.
Literature
Bo Gyllensvärd, Chinese Gold and Silver in the Carl Kempe Collection, Stockholm, 1953, cat. no. 105.
Bo Gyllensvärd, 'T'ang Gold and Silver', Bulletin of the Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities, No. 29, 1957, pl. 15a, fig. 95g.
Han Wei, Hai nei wai Tangdai jin yin qi cuibian [Tang Gold and Silver in Chinese and overseas collections], Xi'an, 1989, pl. 198.
Chinese Gold and Silver in the Carl Kempe Collection, The Museum of Art and Far Eastern Antiquities in Ulricehamn, Ulricehamn, 1999, pl. 110.
Exhibited
Washington, D.C., Smithsonian Institution, Chinese Gold and Silver in the Carl Kempe Collection, 1954-55, cat. no. 105.
New York, Asia House Gallery, Chinese Gold, Silver and Porcelain. The Kempe Collection, 1971, cat. no. 50, an exhibition touring the United States and shown also at nine other museums.

Lot Essay

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.

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