Page 123 - 2019 September 12th Christie's New York Chiense Art Masterpieces of Chinese Gold and Silver

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A RARE PLAIN SILVER STEM CUP
TANG DYNASTY (AD 618-907)
The cup is fnely formed with a bulbous body separated from the faring Plain silver stem cups of this shape appear to be quite rare. Another plain
rim by a bow-string band and is raised on a knobbed stem foot with silver cup of this shape is illustrated in Sui to no bijutsu, Osaka Municipal
splayed base. Art Museum, 1976, no. 2-21. Plain silver vessels of other shapes and of
Tang-dynasty date have also been published including a cylindrical cup
2¬ in. (6.8 cm) high; weight 78.5 g
with ring handle found with a group of ffteen silver objects near the
$40,000-60,000 village of Shapo, southeast of the Tang capital of Chang’an, and now
in the Shaanxi History Museum, illustrated by Li Jian, ed., The Glory of
the Silk Road: Art from Ancient China, The Dayton Art Institute, 2003, p.
PROVENANCE 197, no. 106. Two other small plain silver vessels in the Shaanxi History
Dr. Johan Carl Kempe (1884-1967) Collection, Sweden. Museum, of Tang date, excavated in 1970, at Hejiacun, Xi’an, Shaanxi
Sotheby’s London, Masterpieces of Chinese Precious Metalwork. province, are illustrated by Carol Michaelson, Gilded Dragons, British
Early Gold and Silver, 14 May 2008, lot 58. Museum, 1999, pp. 114-15, no. 76, a jar and cover, and no. 77, a circular
box and cover.
LITERATURE
Chinese Gold & Silver in the Carl Kempe Collection, The Museum of Art
唐 銀高足盃
and Far Eastern Antiquities in Ulricehamn, Ulricehamn, 1999, pl. 107.