Silver Vessels (c. late 600s–early 700s): Art, History and Details

Silver Vessels (c. late 600s–early 700s) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

These vessels attest to the international climate that pervaded the regions of China, Tibet, and Central Asia during the time of the expansionist Tang dynasty (618–907). They are ornamented predominantly with Central Asian elements, including grape vines, beaded borders, heart-shaped motifs, and real and fantastic creatures. Stylistically, the Tibetan objects resemble the metalwork of Sogdian craftspeople, who came from the regions of modern-day Uzbekistan and Tajikistan and settled across Asia. These artists are known to have specialized in the technique of offsetting the silver repoussé design with gilded foil, using heat and pressure to adhere the foil to the silver surface of the vessel.

Object facts

• Title: Silver Vessels
• Date: c. late 600s–early 700s
• Culture: Central Asia (Sogdiana) or Tibet
• Type: Silver
• Technique: Silver with gilded foil
• Dimensions: Part 1: 22.9 cm (9 in.); Part 2: 10.2 x 10.2 cm (4 x 4 in.); Part 3: 500 g (1.1 lbs.)
• Collection: Tibetan Art
• Department: Indian and Southeast Asian Art
• Accession number: 1988.67

A detail from the museum

These banquet items may have been made specifically to be buried alongside a deceased person for use in the afterlife.

Collection credit

Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• “The Year in Review for 1988.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 76, no. 2 (February 1989): 30–75.
• Czuma, Stan. "Museum Acquisitions and Notes." Bulletin of the Asia Institute vol. 5 (1991), 190.
• “Recent Acquisitions at the Cleveland Museum of Art II: Departments of Asian Art: Supplement.” The Burlington Magazine 133, no. 1059 (June 1991): 417–424.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.