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AN IMPORTANT AND VERY RARE GOLD 'WINGED' CUP
- WESTERN HAN DYNASTY, 3RD-2ND CENTURY BC

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AN IMPORTANT AND VERY RARE GOLD 'WINGED' CUP
WESTERN HAN DYNASTY, 3RD-2ND CENTURY BC
Audio: Christopher Engle, Specialist, Chinese Works of Art, New York
Estimate
(Set Currency)
    $800,000 - $1,200,000

Sale Information

Sale 2297
Fine Chinese Ceramics and Works of Art Including Property from the Arthur M. Sackler Collections
26 March 2010
New York, Rockefeller Plaza





Lot Description

AN IMPORTANT AND VERY RARE GOLD 'WINGED' CUP
WESTERN HAN DYNASTY, 3RD-2ND CENTURY BC
The deep oval cup raised on a flat foot of conforming outline, with a pair of everted flange handles of shaped outline flaring slightly upward from the rim and engraved on top with angular scrolls reserved on a ground of fine parallel lines
4¾ in. (12 cm.) long, box
Wt. 252.4 g.

Lot Condition Report
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Provenance

A.W. Bahr Collection, Weybridge, England.
Edna Bahr, Connecticut, late 1960s.

Exhibited

R.H. Ellsworth, Ltd., "International Antiques Dealers Show", Park Avenue Armory, New York, October 1991.

Lot Notes

This important and exceptionally rare gold 'winged' cup would likely have been a treasured vessel of an aristocrat. Previously in the collection of the renowned collector A.W. Bahr, it is similar in shape to 'winged' cups made of painted lacquer found in mid-Warring States (4th-3rd century BC) tombs of the Chu State at Yutaishan, Jiangling, Hubei province, some of which are illustrated by Teng Rensheng, Lacquer Wares of the Chu Kingdom, Hong Kong, 1992, pp. 12-3, pls. 1-3 and pp. 95-7, figs. 2,3,5 and 6. The decoration on all of the illustrated cups is different, but the decoration on the cup illustrated as pl. 1 is the most similar to the engraved decoration on the present cup. (Fig. 1) The particular shape of these excavated cups, referred to as yubei, and the present gold cup - an oval bowl with angular projecting handles - seen as early as the Spring and Autumn period (770-476 BC), continued during the Warring States period, but is thought to have disappeared by the Han dynasty. It was one of the prescribed shapes of lacquer vessels made during the Warring States period, along with the more common cup with rounded 'ear'-shaped handles (erbei), which did continue to be made during the Han dynasty. The lacquer cups, which were used for drinking wine or broth as well as for holding food, were painted with decoration taken from the designs of contemporary textiles, and were prominently included in tombs of the period. Like the lacquer cups, the handles of the present cup are also decorated with textile-inspired designs, but are engraved rather than painted. It is the erbei not the yubei cup that is usually found made from other materials such as bronze, glazed pottery, shell and jade.

Although some gold vessels have been found in tombs dating to the 5th century BC, including that of the Marquis Yi of Zeng in Hubei province, no other gold cup like the present cup appears to have been found. The State of Zeng, which was also in present-day Hubei province, had close ties to the State of Chu, which owed much of its prosperity to its production of gold. The tomb of the Marquis of Zeng contained a rich array of objects made from many different materials, including gold. Some of these, a ding-like bowl and cover, a tumbler with cover, a ladle and some additional vessel covers, are illustrated by Han Wei and Christian Deydier, Ancient Chinese Gold, Paris, 2001, pp. 58-60, pls. 97-9.

A Technical Examination Report is available upon request.

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