A pair of painted lacquer cups, Western Han dynasty. Photo Sotheby's

each delicately constructed with deep rounded sides tapering towards a flat foot, the exterior lacquered in black and further painted in pale brown and red lacquer, one cup with a double-dragon, the other with a double-phoenix, between a band of knotted geometric motifs at the rim and a row of ‘S’-scrolls encircling the base, the interior lacquered in red; 12.2 and 12.5 cm, 4 3/4 and 4 7/8 in. Estimation 80,000 — 120,000 HKD

Exposition: Layered Beauty: The Baoyizhai Collection of Chinese Lacquer, Art Museum, Institute of Chinese Studies, the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, 2010, cat. no. 4.

This pair of cups is extremely rare, and no other similar lacquer vessel of this shape appears to be recorded. In its form it is reminiscent of early jade cups, such as the piece recovered in 1995 from the imperial tomb of the Chu State of the Western Han period in Xuzhou, Jiangsu province, as noted by Peter Lam in Lacquered Beauty, Hong Kong, 2010, p. 22. The shape is also known from an Eastern Zhou period glass beaker, formerly in the Béhague collection and now in the Miho Museum, Japan, illustrated in Giuseppe Eskenazi and Hajni Elias, A Dealer’s Hand. The Chinese Art World Through the Eyes of Giuseppe Eskenazi, London, 2012, fig. 83.

Sotheby's. The Baoyizhai Collection of Chinese Lacquer, Part 1, Hong Kong | 08 avr. 2014 - www.sothebys.com