Page 119 - 2019 September 12th Christie's New York Chiense Art Masterpieces of Chinese Gold and Silver

557

A RARE SILVER SPOON
TANG DYNASTY (AD 618-907)
The spoon is elegantly formed with a long fat handle engraved
with a leafy, fowering vine against a ring-punched ground. The
almost fat bowl is similarly chased with the vine surrounding
a bird in fight.
9¬ in. (24.5 cm.) long; weight 57 g
$10,000-15,000

PROVENANCE
Dr. Johan Carl Kempe (1884-1967) Collection, Sweden,
before 1953, no. CK101.
Sotheby’s London, Masterpieces of Chinese Precious
Metalwork. Early Gold and Silver, 14 May 2008, lot 65.
EXHIBITED
Washington, D.C., Smithsonian Institution, Chinese Gold &
Silver in the Carl Kempe Collection, 1954-55, cat. no. 101.
LITERATURE
Bo Gyllensvärd, Chinese Gold & Silver in the Carl Kempe
Collection, Stockholm, 1953, cat. no. 101.
Bo Gyllensvärd, ‘T’ang Gold and Silver’, Bulletin of the Museum
of Far Eastern Antiquities, No. 29, Stockholm, 1957, pl. 10c,
fgs. 4b, 93n.
Han Wei, Hai nei wai Tangdai jin yin qi cuibian [Tang Gold and
Silver in Chinese and overseas collections], Xi’an, 1989,
pl. 202.
Chinese Gold & Silver in the Carl Kempe Collection, The
Museum of Art and Far Eastern Antiquities in Ulricehamn,
Ulricehamn, 1999, pl. 103.
A very similar silver spoon illustrated in Chinesisches Gold
und Silber, Zurich, 1994, p. 167, no. 156, was previously in the
collection of Mr. and Mrs. Richard Bull and included in the
exhibitions, The Arts of the T’ang Dynasty, The Los Angeles
County Museum, 1957, no. 347, and Early Chinese Gold &
Silver, China Institute in America, New York, 1971-1972, p.
32, no. 30. It was subsequently sold at Sotheby’s New York,
6 December 1983, lot 79. Similar decoration can also be
seen on a smaller (12 cm. long) silver spoon excavated at
Dongguomian, Xi’an, illustrated in The World of the Heavenly
Khan: Treasures of the Tang Dynasty, National Palace
Museum, Taipei, 2002, p. 57.
唐 銀鏨刻卷草紋勺