Footed Platter with Design of Mythical Beasts amid Grapevines
Unknown Artist
700s
Medium
silver with gilt, incised, and chased decoration
Dimensions
4.8 × 30.5 cm
Classification
Silver
Department
Chinese Art
Museum
Cleveland Museum of Art
Credit
Leonard C. Hanna Jr. Fund
Accession Number
1972.39
Rights
Public Domain
About this artwork
Precious Sassanian and Central Asian metalwork had been imported to China as early as the 4th and 5th centuries as a result of wars and prosperous trade along the Silk Road. With the influx of foreign metalworkers to cosmopolitan Tang China, the techniques of sheet metalworking were introduced to the Chinese. This silver vessel demonstrates the effects of such east-west exchanges along the Silk Road. Its decoration with intricate gilt, incised and chased designs against a ring-punched ground is ...