LATE MING-EARLY QING DYNASTY, 16TH-18TH CENTURY

Jade cups of this shape are known as zhi, a shape that appears to have been influenced by lacquer examples of late Warring States-Western Han date (206 BC-AD 9), such as the example with cover dated Western Han (206 BC-AD 9) illustrated by Huei-chung Tsao in the exhibition catalogue, Des Empereurs à L'art Deco, Paris, 2016, p. 118, no. 96, where, p. 118, no. 95, an archaistic jade cup of this shape, dated Ming dynasty, 16th-17th century, is also illustrated. A drawing of this type of lacquer cup, with a bronze cover, handle and banded tripod support, dated mid-Warring States period (476-221 BC), excavated from Fuling, Sichuan province, is illustrated by Suning Sun-Bailey, "Gained in Translation", Chinese Jade: Selected Articles from Orientations 1983-1996, pp. 111-13, p. 112, fig. 3. Also illustrated, p. 113, fig. 5, is a gilt-bronze zhi with cover of late Western Han date (206 BC-AD 23), excavated from Shaoguan, Guangdong province, The author notes that this type of vessel "disappeared from the range of Chinese drinking vessels after the Han dynasty, only to be re-created and re-styled in jade more than 1500 years later", with a more slender profile and elaborate decoration. The author illustrates two of these later archaistic jade examples in the Victoria and Albert Museum, dated Ming-Qing dynasty (1368-1911), p. 111. one of white jade, which has a cover, fig. 1, the other of opaque chicken bone jade, fig. 2.
Another white jade zhi with cover and archaistic decoration, with a Lu Zigang mark, was found in a tomb near Beijing, which is dated AD 1676. Six of the jades found in the tomb, including the cup and cover, are illustrated by S. Howard Hansford, Chinese Carved Jades, London, 1968, pl. 83. The tomb is of the seven-year old daughter of the early Qing statesman, Songgatu. It contained objects of the late Ming period, and based on the date of the tomb the pieces may be dated to the Ming-Qing transitional period.