A spectacular Sogdian sheet-silver bucket with drum-shaped body, narrow discoid repoussé base, bands of repoussé foliage to the body beneath a raised collar and fluted neck and rim; handle held by two securing hoops formed as miniature rams.

PROVENANCE:
From an old private collection.
with Oxus Fine Arts Pte. Ltd, Singapore.
Acquired by the current owner in London, 2012.

This lot has been checked against the Interpol Database of stolen works of art and is accompanied by a search certificate number no.12288-220840.

LITERATURE:
See Sasanian Silver. Late Antique and Early Medieval Arts of Luxury From Iran. August-September 1967, The University of Michigan Museum of Art, Michigan, 1967; Marshak, B.I., Sogdiiskoe serebro. Ocherki po vostochnoi torevtike, Moscow, 1971; Fehervari, G., Islamic Metalwork of the Eighth to the Fifteenth Century in the Keir Collection, London, 1976; Darkevich, V.P., Khudozhestvennyi metall Vostoka VIII-XIIIvv. Proizvedeniia vostochnoi torevtiki na territorii evropeiskoi chasti SSSR i Zaural'ia (Extensive analysis and description of the Eastern metal work of the 8th-13th centuries found in European Russia and Siberia), Moscow, 1976.

FOOTNOTES:
Dr. Grigoriev, in his studies on Sogdian silver artworks, has traced specific Sogdian features of metalwork prototypes on the basis of the ceramic replicas. Some of these features were distinguished on gold and silver vessels which possess many other characteristics bringing them together. In our bucket, the style and the decoration of the flowers resemble those of the bucket with deer from Shirokovskoe (Perm, see Marshak, 1971, T,35), while the bands of repoussé foliage to the body beneath the raised collar and fluted neck and rim recall the decoration of the dish with deer from Rep’evka, in Samara Province (Darkevich, 1976, n.12).