A rare and finely engraved silver stem cup Tang dynasty | 唐 銀鏨花鳥紋蓮瓣高足盃

Collection of David David-Weill (1871-1952), no. 37/85.

Collection of Arthur M. Sackler (1913-1987).

Christie's New York, 1st December 1994, lot 65.

Eskenazi Ltd, London, 22nd May 1997.

David David-Weill（1871-1952年）收藏，編號37/85

賽可勒（1913-1987年）收藏

紐約佳士得1994年12月1日，編號65

埃斯卡納齊，倫敦，1997年5月22日

Stemcups of this elegant flower-shaped form with lobed body are rare, although a closely related gilded silver six lobed stem cup, but decorated with a hunting scene, is in the Hakutsuru Fine Art Museum, Kobe, illustrated in Sekai bijutsu taizenshu: Toyo hen, vol. 4, Tokyo, 1997, pls. 168-169. Another example in the British Museum, London, is published in Jessica Rawson, 'The Ornament on Chinese Silver of the Tang Dynasty (AD 618-906), Occasional Paper, no.40, London, 1982, pl. 1. See also a stem cup from the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, included in the China Institute of America exhibition Early Chinese Gold and Silver, China House Gallery, New York, 1971, cat.no. 74.

For other examples at auction, see a smaller silver flower-shaped stem cup illustrated in Bo Gyllensvärd, Chinese Gold and Silver in the Carl Kempe Collection, Stockholm, 1953, cat. no. 110, sold in our London rooms, 14th May 2008, lot 40; and another, from the Mayer collection and illustrated in Bo Gyllensvard, Tang Gold and Silver, Bulletin of the Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities, no. 29, Stockholm, 1957, pl. 8e, sold at Christie's London, 24th/25th June 1974, lot 156.

Compare also a cup illustrated in Zhongguo jin yin boli falangqi quanji, vol. 2, Shijiazhuang, 2004, pl. 6, in the Shaanxi History Museum; and another included in the exhibition Chinesisches Gold und Silber. Die Sammlung Pierre Uldry, Museum Rietberg, Zurich, 1994, cat. no. 136.