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

each of elliptical form, delicately constructed with deep rounded sides supported on a flat base, set with a pair of crescent-moon shaped handles set at a slight angle, the delicate wood body covered on the exterior, ears and interior rim with a pale brownish-black lacquer, the interior with a red lacquer, one cup inscribed on the interior with a five-character mark in clerical script da Weicaichi yong ('for the use of elder Weicaichi'), the other with a illegible inscription; 8.5 and 8.8 cm., 3 3/8 and 3 1/2 in. Estimation 50,000 — 70,000 HKD

Exposition: 2000 Years of Chinese Lacquer. Oriental Ceramic Society of Hong Kong and the Art Gallery, the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, 1993, cat. no. 4.
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. 3.

This pair of cups belongs to a small group of early Han period wares. As Peter Lam notes in Layered Beauty, Hong Kong, 2010, p. 20, ‘according to recent research, the present pair has characteristics of early to mid-Western Han 'ear cups' such as the elongated elliptical mouth, the crescent-moon shaped ears at the slight angle, and the flat bottom. 'Ear cups' of the Warring States to the Han dynasty may be classified by angular and crescent-moon shaped ears into two major categories. However, cups with angular ears however disappeared after 2nd century B.C.'.

For related examples see one included in the exhibition Lacquer from the Warring States to the Han Periods Excavated in Hubei Province, Art Gallery, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1994, cat. no. 31; another illustrated in Im Zeichen des Drachen, Munchen, 2007, pl. 6, from the collection of Fritz Löw-Beer and now in the Linden-Museum Stuttgart; and a pair of cups , attributed to the early Western Han period and now in the Linyi City Museum in Shandong province, illustrated in Zhongguo qiqi quanji, vol. 3, Fuzhou, 1998, pl. 32. A slightly larger 'ear cup' of this type, from the Mayer collection was sold at Christie’s London, 24th / 25th June 1976; and another from the Krolik collection was sold in our London rooms, 24th February 1970, lot 75.

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