LATE WARRING STATES PERIOD, 3RD-2ND CENTURY BC

The unusual raptor-head handle and the heart-shape of the present cup can also be seen in a similar silver wine cup of larger size (10.7 x 10.5 cm.) in The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, attributed to North-central China, 4th-3rd century BC, illustrated by Jenny F. So and Emma C. Bunker, Traders and Raiders on China's Northern Frontier, Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Washington, D.C,, 1995, pp. 152-53, no. 73. (Fig. 1) This cup, and another like it illustrated by Mizuno Seiichi, Bronzes and Jades of Ancient China, Tokyo. 1959, p. 154B, has plain rather than the lobed sides of the Kempe cup. Also illustrated by Mizuno, pl. 154A, are two silver cups of heart shape, one with handles, and all are said to come from Jincun. The same heart shape, as well as an upright handle in the shape of a bird's head can be seen in a small lacquer ladle dated Western Han, illustrated in Lacquerware from the Warring States to the Han Period Excavated in Hubei Province, Hubei Provincial Museum/The Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1994, no. 58. See, also, the small jade cup of this shape with carved sides illustrated by Thomas Lawton, Chinese Art of the Warring States Period, Freer Gallery of Art, 1982, p. 156, no. 103.

The water-drop or petal-shaped lobed decoration on the sides of this rare silver cup can be found on other silver vessels made both in Achaemenid Persia (550-300 BC), such as the phiale (shallow drinking bowl) with inscription in the Freer Gallery of Art, illustrated by Zhixin Jason Sun, Age of Empires: Art of the Qin and Han Dynasties, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 2017, p. 173, fig. 75, and the parcel-gilt silver circular box with cover (5 3/16 in. diam.), dated Western Han dynasty (206 BC-AD 9), excavated in 1994 from the tomb of the prince of Chu, Beidongshan, Xuzhou, Jiangsu province, also illustrated by Sun, pp. 172-73, no. 94. A similar box with cover is illustrated in Nanyue King's Tomb of the Western Han, vol. II, Beijing, 1991, pl. XXIII (1).