Flower-shaped Wine Cup and Stand

This pairing of porcelain and metal examples of the same lobed winecups with dish-shaped stands relates to a roughly contemporary group of painted funerary panels of Liao and Jin dynasties on view in the Asian galleries of the Lower Level. Two of the panels depict scenes of outdoor banqueting with tables set with vessels, including cups with stands similar to this pair. A point of controversy has been whether the vessels depicted in the panel paintings are ceramic or metal. This type of lobed cup and stand have their prototype in metal examples and were later imitated in ceramic. Metal examples may also have been more finely deatiled than their ceramic counterparts. For example, in the center of the stand is a ring of lotus petals and a central medallion incised to resemble a lotus seed pod. Also on the bottom of the silver cup is incised a single indecipherable character or glyph.