Cup with handles, raised linked curls, and birds

1. Bought from C. T. Loo [Lu Qinzhai] 盧芹齋, New York. For price, see Freer Gallery of Art Purchase List after 1920.

2. (Undated Folder Sheet note) For cups of similar shape, made of lacquer in Sze chuan [Sichuan] 四川 bearing Han 漢 dates, and excavated in Korea, see Rakurō Jidai no Iseki: Archaeological researches on the ancient Lolang district, vol. IV, Koseki chōsa tokubetsu hōkoku: Special Report of the Service of Antiquities (Seoul: Chōsen Sōtokufu, 1925).

3. (Undated Folder Sheet note) Letter of November 22, 1934, from Bishop William Charles White (q.v.) says:

"The elliptical jade cup, according to C. T. Loo [Lu Qinzhai] 盧芹齋's agent -- 'Little Yie' (Hsiao Yie) -- came from the central part of Shantung [Shandong] 山東, but he did not know the name of the place."

"Later on I submitted the photograph to Chang Tzu mei (Wenley had sent me the photograph), and he was definitely sure that the object did not come from Lo yang [Luoyang] 洛陽."

4. (Julia K. Murray, 1980) Late Chou [Zhou] 周 changed to Late Eastern Chou [Zhou] 周, Warring States, 5th--3rd century BCE. Exhibition Ancient Chinese Jade label text; moved to label field.

5. (Thomas Lawton, Chinese Art of the Warring States Period: Change and Continuity, 480-222 B.C. [Washington, DC: Freer Gallery of Art, 1982], cat. no. 102) The outer surface of the cup is decorated with a pattern of  interlocked relief spirals, which are arranged more densely toward the base. Bands of reversed T shaped motifs at the lip and base of the cup enclose the spirals. Laterally placed handles on either of the long sides of the cup are decorated with openwork spirals and raised spiral motifs. On the interior bottom of the cup is a symmetrical oval design; a pair of curvilinear birds within an oval frame appears on the exterior bottom. [1]

Although oval winged cups of this type were made in lacquer, bronze pottery, and mother of pearl shell as early as the late Eastern Chou [Zhou] 周 and Han 漢, jade examples are extremely rare. The closest parallel to the Freer cup is the pair in the Fogg Museum, which is said to have come from Chin ts'un [Jincun] 金村, near Loyang [Luoyang] 洛陽, Honan [Henan] 河南 province. [2] In a letter dated November 22, 1934, Bishop William Charles White reports, however, that the Freer cup definitely did not come from Chin ts'un [Jincun] 金村 but from an unspecified site in central Shantung [Shandong] 山東 province. [3]

An unusual gilt silver yu shang 羽觴 is reported to have been unearthed at Chin ts'un [Jincun] 金村. [4] In his discussion of the silver winged cup, Nagahiro Toshio 長廣敏雄 points out that lacquered wooden insets were originally fitted into the depressions on the undersides of the handles. [5] Perhaps those insets were meant to make the handling of the cup more comfortable when it contained heated liquids. Two characters appear on the outer base of the cup. [6]

Winged cups continued to be made of precious metals as late as the T'ang [Tang] 唐 dynasty. A silver cup with engraved gilt floral decoration was among the T'ang [Tang] 唐 dynasty hoard found in 1970 at Ho chi ts'un 何家村, Sian [Xi'an] 西安, Shensi [Shaanxi] 陝西 province. [7]

[1] The Freer cup has been discussed by a number of scholars. Among the most important of those statements are S. Howard Hansford, Chinese Jade Carving (London: Lund Humphries, 1950), pp. 113-14, pl. 19a; S. Howard Hansford, Chinese Carved Jades (London: Faber, 1968), pl. 39b; Alfred Salmony, Carved Jade of Ancient China (Berkeley, CA: Gillick Press, 1938), pl. 55:2; Osvald Siren, Kinas Konst under Tre Artusenden, vol. 2 (Stockholm: Natur och Kultur, 1942), pl. 57b; Umehara Sueji 梅原末治, Shina kogyoku zuroku 支那古玉圖錄 (Kyoto: Kuwana bunseido, 1955), pl. 59.

[2] Max Loehr, Ancient Chinese Jades from the Grenville L. Winthrop Collection in the Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University (Cambridge, MA: Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University, 1975), no. 522.

[3] Freer Gallery of Art Archives, Umehara Sueji 梅原末治, however, includes the Freer cup in his book on objects from Chin-ts'un [Jincun] 金村, Rakuyō Kinson kobo shūei 洛陽金村古墓聚英 (Kyoto: Kobayashi shashin seihanjo shuppanbu, 1937), pl. 78.

[4] Umehara Sueji 梅原末治, Rakuyō Kinson kobo shūei 洛陽金村古墓聚英 (Kyoto: Kobayashi shashin seihanjo shuppanbu, 1937), pl. 23; Nagahiro Toshio 長廣敏雄, ed., Sekai bijutsu zenshū 世界美術全集, vol. 12: Yin Chou Chan-kuo 殷周戰國 (Tokyo: Kadokawa Shoten, 1962), pl. 77.

[5] Ibid., p. 236.

[6] Umehara Sueji 梅原末治, Rakuyō Kinson kobo shūei 洛陽金村古墓聚英 (Kyoto: Kobayashi shashin seihanjo shuppanbu, 1937), p. 23, deciphers the characters as kan hsiao, but Bernhard Karlgren suggests kan-yu ("Notes on a Kin-ts'un Album," Bulletin of the Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities 1938.10: 76). Jung Keng [Rong Geng] 容庚 also interprets the characters as kan-yu (Shang Chou i-ch'i t'ung-k'ao [Shang Zhou yiqi tongkao] 商周彛器通考[Beijing: Hafo Yanjing xueshe, 1941], p. 455, pl. 427).

[7] Ch'u-t'u wen-wu chan-lan kung-tso-tsu [Chutu wenwu zhanlan gongzuozu] 出土文物展覽工作組, ed., Wen-hua ta-ko-ming ch'i-chien ch'u-t'u wen-wu [Wenhua dageming qijian chutu wenwu] 文化大革命期間出土文物 (Beijing: Wenwu chubanshe, 1972), p. 50.

6. (Undated Folder Sheet note) See F1930.31, #6.

7. (Stephen Allee per Keith Wilson, June 19, 2008) As per Jenny F. So, Jade Project Database, changed Date from  "5th--4th century BCE" to "475--221 BCE"; Designation "nephrite" as per Elizabeth West Fitzhugh, as determined by X ray diffraction January 1956, was confirmed by Janet G. Douglas using infrared spectroscopy March 1996. Also changed Object Name from "Wine cup" to "Cup"; changed Title from "Wine cup" to "Ear Cup." Added Dimensions  per Christine Lee, from Jade Project Database.

8. (Jeffrey Smith per Keith Wilson, July 1, 2008) Vessel added as secondary classification.

9. (Susan Kitsoulis per Keith Wilson, June 10, 2010) Title changed from "Ear Cup" to "Cup with handles."

10. (Najiba Choudhury per Keith Wilson, February 26, 2024) Title changed from "Cup with handles" to "Cup with handles, raised linked curls, and birds"; and added Chinese caption by Jingmin Zhang.