A Bowl of Wonder

First Published by Bonhams on 21 Sep 2020

An Exceptional Parcel Gilt Silver Lobed Bowl at Bonhams' Fine Chinese Paintings and Works of Art Sale in New York

Fine Chinese Paintings and Works of Art 21 Sep 2020New YorkAn exceptional parcel gilt silver lobed bowl Tang dynasty, 7th-8th centuries

New York - One of the highlights of Bonhams' Fine Chinese Paintings and Works of Art on September 21 will be An Exceptional Parcel Gilt Silver Lobed Bowl dating from the Tang dynasty. It has an estimate of $200,000 – 300,000.

This important silver-gilt bowl would undoubtedly have been made for a figure of exalted status, exemplifying as it does, the finest metal craftsmanship of the Tang Dynasty (618-907AD). Of large size, almost nine inches across, it is elegantly proportioned and exquisitely hammered into an attractive floral outline of five lobed petals forming the sides of the vessel, which are further enhanced by ten magnificent hammered, punched and engraved medallions of exotic foliage, flowers and fruit. These are equally spaced, five to the exterior and five to the interior, with a further much larger and superlative medallion at the center.

Originally housed in a private collection in Tokyo before appearing at market in 2002, it then entered another private collection, this time in Europe. It was exhibited in Switzerland at the renowned Baur Museum in Geneva, the repository of a magnificent collection of East Asian art.

It now re-appears, some 18 years later, at a time when a new viewership, which includes a voracious mainland Chinese audience, is hungry for such high status and rare materials. This was evidenced in the recent appearance to market of famous, well-provenanced silver and gold objects from the likes of the Carl Kempe and Stephen Junkunc III collections, which garnered world attention.

Created with a sheet of silver carefully hammered over a shaped mold, probably of wood, and then enhanced with punched and engraved floral medallions further enriched by a top layer of mercury gilding, the dazzling contrast of gold and silver must have astonished the original patron, just as it still does today.

The opening of the trade routes between China, the Near East and Central Asia during the cosmopolitan Tang Dynasty era heralded a wave of artistic change across the country. New technologies and designs permeated China, with Persian glass making techniques and metallurgy having a great impact. This coincided with the development of gold mining, most particularly in the central and southern provinces, which proved particularly rich in this ore.

However, by the late 7th century, gold shortages resulted in Imperial edicts restricting its use to only those of a high status in Tang society.

Two of the earliest discoveries of gold and silver objects, one in 1925, near present-day Xian and the other in 1930 at Balin in Eastern Mongolia, epitomize the finest of Tang precious-metal production (added to in 1970 by a new hoard at Hejiacun, near Xian.) It seems very likely that the present bowl was amongst fifteen very similar bowls and dishes in the 1930 discovery. Eight of these entered the Carl Kempe Collection at the time of the discovery whilst others, over time, have been dispersed around the world. Seattle Art Museum and the University of Pennsylvania Collection have each benefitted with examples from the same 1930 hoard.