Rare et exceptionnel rhyton en jade gris et rouille sculpté. Chine, dynastie Ming (1368-1644)

de forme ch'iu, la surface sulptée en trois registres d'arabesques archaïsantes, phénix et dragons, une bande de motifs en spirale sous une frise formelle au bord, la crinière et les cornes d'un animal mythique formant la base du vase, deux perles enflammées de chaque côté, la pierre d'une belle teinte grise avec incrustations noires et rouille ; socle en bois. 22,2 cm, 8 3/4 in. Est. 60,000—80,000 EUR. Lot Sold 156,750 EUR

PROVENANCE: Etude Couturier-Nicolay, vente Hotel Drouot 10 décembre 1975, lot 133 (39,000 Francs)

NOTE: It is rare to find rhyton cups of this exceptional quality and elegantly curved form. The artist working on this piece has skillfully used the original contours of the stone to create a vessel that shows great respect for the material. Shaped after ancient horn-form vessels, jade rhytons differed from ordinary daily wares. They were held in high esteem not only for the exceptional quality of the material but also for the vessel's reference to the past.

See a rhyton cup in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, illustrated in Ming Wilson, Chinese Jades, London, 2004, pl. 35, attributed to the 13^thand 14^th centuries, which possibly became the prototype copied by Ming and Qing jade carvers. Wilson, ibid., p. 39, notes that there exists today a group of similar cups made in subsequent periods, all of which can be traced to the cup in the Victoria and Albert Museum. Another early rhyton cup, in the Asian Art Museum, San Francisco, was included in the exhibition Chinese Jade Throughout the Ages, Victoria and Albert Museum, 1975, cat. no. 309, together with two further examples of cups with stepped foot, cat.nos. 310 and 311.

A rhyton cup attributed to the Ming dynasty, carved with a related archaistic motif, from the collection of Captian Louis Tissier and acquired in China during the Boxer Rebellion, was sold at Christie's Hong Kong, 30/31^st October 1994, lot 458.

For examples of archaistic rhyton cups made during the Qing dynasty, see one commissioned by the Qianlong emperor and inscribed with one of his poems dated to the mid-Spring of 1785 A.D., illustrated in Rene-Yvon Lefebvre d'Argence, Chinese Jades in the Avery Brundage Collection, San Francisco, 1977, pl. LIX. See also a spinach-green jade vessel, in the Palace Museum, Beijing, included in Chinese Jades Throughout the Ages – Connoisseurship of Chinese Jades, vol. 11, Hong Kong, 1996, pl. 38.

Sotheby's. Asian Art. 11 Jun 09. Paris www.sothebys.com