Lot 32. A rare and large engraved silver ladle, Tang dynasty (AD 618-907); 26.8 cm, 10 ½ in. Estimate: 400,000 - 600,000 HKD. Courtesy Sotheby's.

the deep petal-lobed bowl delicately chased and engraved with three small birds amongst flowering scrolling foliage on a ring-punched ground, the elegantly curved long handle similarly decorated with a sinuous foliate meander and terminating in a bird's head.

Provenance: Gisèle Croës, Brussels, 20th November 1997.

Note: A closely related ladle was included in the exhibition Chinesisches Gold und Silber. Die Sammlung Pierre Uldry, Museum Rietberg, Zurich, 1994, cat. no. 157; another fine silver ladle of this elegant form similarly chased and engraved with small birds amongst flowering scrolling foliage on a fine ring-punched ground, from the collection of the Hon. Hugh Scott and included in the China Institute in America exhibition Early Chinese Gold and Silver, China House Gallery, New York, 1971, cat. no. 72, and illustrated in Hugh Scott, The Golden Age of Chinese Art, Rutland, Vermont, 1967, pl. 13, was sold at Christie's New York, 4th December 1982, lot 399. Compare a very similar example, of slightly smaller proportions, illustrated in Bo Gyllensvärd, Chinese Gold and Silver in the Carl Kempe Collection, Stockholm, 1953, pl. 105, sold in our London rooms, 14th May 2008, lot 62, and again at Christie's New York, 12th September 2019, lot 553.