Page 57 - SOtheby's Hong Kong Hawthorne Collection Scholar's Art May 2018

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AN INSCRIBED AND SILVER-INLAID ZITAN 明末 紫檀仿古嵌銀絲題詩匜
POURING VESSEL, YI
題識：
LATE MING DYNASTY
挹天酒漿，睨北之斗
modelled after the archaic bronze prototype, inlaid in silver
wire with eight seal characters beneath a key-fret band around
the rim
11.4 cm, 4½ in.
HK$ 40,000-60,000
US$ 5,100-7,700

The inscriptions read yi tian jiujiang, ni bei zhi dou, and can be
translated as:
‘To pour the celestial wine, raise a toast to the Northern Star.’
The distinct style of the intricately inlaid inscription in zhuanshu
script closely relates to that on an 18th century silver-inlaid
zitan vessel, a chilong cup, illustrated in C.Y. Tsai, Zitan. The
Most Noble Hardwood, My Humble House, Taipei, 1999, pp.
198-199.

SCHOLARLY ART FROM THE COLLECTION OF MR & MRS GERARD HAWTHORN 55