Page 86 - Christie's Chinese Works of Art March 24 and 25th, 2022 NYC

ANOTHER PROPERTY
ⱷ753
AN ENGRAVED PARCEL-GILT SILVER 'DUCKS' BOWL 唐 銀局部鎏金雙鴨紋盌
TANG DYNASTY (AD 618-907) 來源:
The bowl is raised on a circular foot and the interior is engraved with a central Eurasian-Art Inc., 東京, 1995年9月8日
medallion of two ducks amidst lotus leaves and other acquatic plants below
five leafy spreays in the well, all picked out in gilding. The exterior is left
undecorated.
8 in. (20.4 cm.) high, Japanese double wood box
$80,000-120,000
PROVENANCE:
Eurasian-Art Inc., Tokyo, 8 September 1995.

The twin duck motif present on the interior of this bowl represents a loving
couple living in harmony, and a happy marriage.
Compare two Tang dynasty parcel-gilt bowls of this shape, but decorated
with flower blossoms and leafy stems rather than ducks, illustrated by B.
Gyllensvärd in Chinese Gold & Silver in the Carl Kempe Collection, Stockholm,
1953, nos. 115 and 116, where the author notes that three bowls similar to no.
116 were found at Balin in Eastern Mongolia. Two other Tang silver bowls
of this type in the collection of Pierre Uldry illustrated in Chinesisches Gold
und Silber, Museum Rietberg, Zürich, 1994, nos. 147 and 148. One of the
bowls in the Natanael Wessén Collection, Stockholm, was later included in
the exhibition, Early Chinese art from tombs and temples, Eskenazi, London,
June-July 1993, no. 32 and is now in the Miho Museum, Japan, illustrated in
the Catalogue of the Miho Museum (The South Wing), 1997, no. 136. Unlike
these other bowls which have two blossoming and budding leafy stems in
the center and differing flower sprays on the lobes of the interior and exterior
walls, the present bowl has four peony stems radiating outwards from the
center, and the same flower spray repeated on the interior and exterior of
each of the five lobes.

(additional view with box)
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