Page 114 - 2019 September 12th Christie's New York Chiense Art Masterpieces of Chinese Gold and Silver

MASTERPIECES OF EARLY CHINESE GOLD AND SILVER | 金紫銀青 - 中國早期金銀器粹珍

This elegant, parcel-gilt silver ladle, with its lobed oval bowl and
engraved and chased decoration of birds amidst foral scrolls reserved
on a fne ring-punched ground on the exterior, is similar to several
other published examples, including the example in The Art Institute of
Chicago, illustrated by Clarence W. Kelley, Chinese Gold and Silver in
American Collections, The Dayton Art Institute, Dayton, Ohio, 1984, no.
10 (Fig. 1); one in the Seattle Art Museum included in the exhibition, The
Arts of the T’ang Dynasty, Los Angeles County Museum, 1957, no. 348;
and one originally in the collections of Mrs. Christian R. Holmes and the
Hon. Senator Hugh Scott, subsequently sold at Christie’s New York, 2-4
December 1982, lot 399, and later illustrated in Chinesisches Gold und
Silber: Die Sammlung Pierre Uldry, Zurich, 1994, pp. 166-67, no. 157. All
of these also have a similar slender, curved handle that terminates in the
small head of a bird.

Fig. 1 A silver ladle, Tang dynasty (618 AD - 907 AD). Gift of Lucy Maud Buckingham.
The Art Institute of Chicago.

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