Page 174 - 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

600

A RARE SILVER STEM CUP
TANG DYNASTY (AD 618-907)
The goblet-form cup is raised on a short, knopped stem foot with spreading base decorated with
foliate scroll, and the sides are fnely chased with scrolling, leafy and fowering vines, interspersed
with birds in fight executed in very fne ring-punching, all against a ring-punched ground.
2¡ in. (6 cm.) high; weight 47.7 g
$10,000-15,000

PROVENANCE
Dr. Johan Carl Kempe (1884-1967) Collection, Sweden, before 1953, CK103.
Sotheby’s London, Masterpieces of Chinese Precious Metalwork. Early Gold and Silver, 14 May 2008,
lot 66.
EXHIBITED
Washington, D.C., Smithsonian Institution, Chinese Gold & Silver in the Carl Kempe Collection,
1954-55, cat no. 103.

LITERATURE
Bo Gyllensvärd, Chinese Gold & Silver in the Carl Kempe Collection, Stockholm, 1953, cat. no. 103.
Bo Gyllensvärd, ‘T’ang Gold and Silver’, Bulletin of the Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities, No. 29,
Stockholm, 1957, fg. 25e.
Han Wei, Hai nei wai Tangdai jin yin qi cui bian, [Tang Gold and Silver in Chinese and overseas
collections], Xi’an, 1989, pl. 44.
Chinese Gold & Silver in the Carl Kempe Collection, The Museum of Art and Far Eastern Antiquities
in Ulricehamn, Ulricehamn, 1999, pl. 105.
The goblet shape of this stem cup appears to be very rare. Another cup of this shape with similar
decoration in the Yamato Bunkakan, Nara, Japan, is illustrated by Qi Dongfang, Tangdai jin yin qi
yan jiu (Research on Tang gold and silver), Beijing, 1999, pl. 2, and again in a line drawing, p. 41, fg.
1-54. The fowers and leaves appear similar to those on the present cup, and one can see in pl. 2
that there are birds in fight amidst the scrolling vine, however they are chased or engraved and not
ring-punched as they are on the present cup.

唐 銀刻卷草花果紋高足盃

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