Page 453 - The Golden Age of Chinese Archaeology: Celebrated Discoveries from the People’s Republic of China

piece is heated, the mercury rapidly evaporates in a
toxic vapor, leaving a thin coating of gold on the
surface of the piece. The effect of gilding only cer-
tain parts of the design is known as parcel-gilding.
In the Tang dynasty, this form of decoration was
particularly valued, since the process of rubbing
down and burnishing the silver surface gave the
plain areas a resplendence that, unlike that of West-
ern silver, does not tarnish. Pieces such as this one
and those from the Famen Monastery reliquary
deposit (cats. 164-166) were still shining brilliantly
when they were discovered.
The shape of this pan, with its six lobes, is in-
spired by a mallow flower. The piece has a narrow,
flat rim and a base that is completely flat except for
the slight hollow where the decoration has been
worked. The animal in the center is a composite,
with a bovine head, a single horn, a flowing mane,
the wings of a bird in full display, cloven hoofs, and
a tail that is more frond than feather. A close paral-
lel in both style and the treatment of the tail can be
found in the portrayal of a kalavinka (the human-
headed celestial bird inhabiting the Buddhist Pure
Land of the West), engraved on the edge of the stela
of the Chan Master of Great Wisdom, dated 736 CE,
154 in the Beilin, or Forest of Stelae, Xi'an. The date of

Parcel-gilt silver pan dish with mythical figure this dish and of the others in the set (all of which
have different shapes and motifs, but are worked in
Height 1.2 (Vz), diam. 15.3 (6) the same fashion) may therefore be assumed to be
Tang Dynasty, first half of the eighth century CE
around the same time, reflecting the flourishing
(c. 713-755)
splendor of the Tang capital during the reign of
From the Hejiacun hoard, southern suburbs of
Emperor Xuanzong (713-755). RW
Xi'an, Shaanxi Province
Shaanxi History Museum, Xi'an i Excavated in 1970.

Houston and San Francisco only

1
This dish and the next (cat. 155) are part of a set
produced by the same combination of metalwork-
ing techniques: each dish was formed of sheet sil-
ver, polished, and the design worked in repousse
by hammering from the back; details were added
by chasing from the front, and finally the motif
was gilded, using an amalgam of gold and mercury
applied with a brush to the selected area. When the

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