SOUTHERN SONG-EARLY MING DYNASTY, 13TH-15TH CENTURY

Jade cups of this shape are known as zhi, a shape that appears to have been influenced by lacquer prototypes of late Warring States period-late Western Han dynasty (c. 4^th-1^st century BC) date. See, for example, the zhi raised on three mask-surmounted feet, and set with a small loop handle and a cover, dated Western Han (206 BC-AD 9), illustrated by Huei-chung Tsao in Des Empereurs à L’art Déco, Paris, 2016, p. 118, no. 96, where an archaistic jade cup of this shape dated Ming dynasty, 16^th-17^t,h century is also illustrated, no. 95. 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, Chinse Jade: Selected Articles from Orientations 1983-1996, 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.

For an early jade version of a zhi see the Han dynasty example of a jade zhi, its shape and decoration similar to that of the present cup, from the tomb of Liu Hong (d. AD 306) at Anxiang, Hunan province illustrated by Jessica Rawson, Chinese Jade from the Neolithic to the Qing, British Museum, 1995, p. 75, fig. 70, and by Gu Fang (ed.), The Complete Collection of Jades Unearthed in China, vol. 10, Beijing, 2005, p. 237. On both the cup from Hunan and the current cup, the main field of decoration is bordered above and below by a narrow band, the lower band interrupted by a taotie mask positioned above each of the three feet. Another jade zhi, but with a cover, dated Western Han dynasty (206 BC-AD 9), that is very similar to the present cup and similar in size, is in the Freer Gallery of Art, F1947.10a-c.