Lot 29. A very rare pair of gold-inlaid silver spoons, Warring States period (482-221 BC)-Western Han Dynasty (206 BC-9 AD); 26.7 cm and 27.2 cm long. Sold for €35,840. © Bonhams 2001-2024

Each spoon with a racquet-shaped bowl decorated with a pierced design of two addorsed stylised dragons within a narrow border of linked S-scrolls, extending to a slender, slightly tapering stem and terminating in a handle with a pierced design of S-shaped scrolls terminating in a larger C-scroll, set with an eyelet suspending a ring, spoons and handles worked in a parcel-gilt openwork stylised bird scroll motif, the bowl and handle finely inlaid in gold with a variety of animals including prowling tigers, long-tailed birds, recumbent deer and seated hares, foxes and owls, all running and racing amidst stylised rockwork, the stem on one spoon set with a stylised, gold-inlaid bird head, the other spoon with a stylised taotie mask.

Provenance: Acquired from Priestley & Ferraro, London, November 1999
A distinguished European private collection.

Published: Priestley & Ferraro, Out of Wind and Dust: Reflections of War and Peace in Chinese Art, London, 1999, cat.no.1.

Note: This highly unusual pair of gold-inlaid silver straining spoons appears to be unique and no other example appears to be recorded. Stylistically these beautifully made spoons follow the tradition of silver and gold-inlaid bronze vessels, fittings and ornaments made in the later part of the Warring States period and the Western Han dynasty. Their elaborate and highly fluid decoration displays the stylistic and technical influence of artistic developments that took place in the southern regions of China at the end of the Warring States period and that continued well into the Qin and Western Han periods. The gold-inlaid designs on the handles and bowls of both spoons are filled with tiny animals including birds, hares, foxes and tigers, realistically rendered and vigorously moving along fine curvilinear lines. The underlying openwork design of addorsed stylised birds and dragons contributes to the overall dynamism of the design reflecting the influence of contemporaneous lacquer painting and silk weaving. The fluid, calligraphic representations on these two spoons recall painted designs found on Chu lacquer, such as the lacquer coffin from Baoshan, Jingmen, Hubei province, illustrated by Teng Rensheng, Lacquer Wares of the Chu Kingdom, Hong Kong, 1992, pp.58-59, no.6, or on outermost lacquer coffin found in the Western Han tomb No.1 of the Lady Dai (217–168 BC) at Mawangdui, Changsha, Hunan province.

From the early sixth century BC, gold and silver were gradually adopted as inlays, and very few solid gold and silver vessels were made from the fifth century BC onwards. Vessels, ornaments and fittings made entirely in silver or even gold represented a 'new' element in the artistic repertory of this early period. However, among the rare pieces made in gold is a gold straining spoon that was discovered in the tomb of the Marquis Yi of Zeng in Sui Xian, Leigudun, Hubei province, dated to 433 BC. While it is not inlaid, the bowl of this spoon is rendered in a pierced design of stylised scrollwork similar to the design on the bowls on the present pair of spoons (Fig.1). Rare silver vessels of this period include a small silver bowl with a raptor-head handle formerly in the Carl Kempe collection, illustrated in Bo Gyllensvärd, Chinese Gold and Silver in the Carl Kempe Collection, Stockholm, 1953, pl.76, and another small silver cup in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, published in Jenny F. So and Emma C. Bunker, Traders and Raiders on China's Northern Frontier, Washington, D.C., 1995, cat.no.73.

Bonhams. CHINESE ART, Paris, 12 June 2024