J.J. Lally & Co., Oriental Art / New York City, New York

No other Song dynasty bowl of this design in silver or gold appears to have been recorded, but a plain silver conical bowl unearthed in 1959 from a Song dynasty hoard at Xiaoquan, Deyang county, Sichuan province and now in the Sichuan Provincial Museum is illustrated in Zhongguo meishu fenlei quanji, gongyimeishu bian 10: jin yin boli falang qi (Compendium of Chinese Works of Art, Arts and Crafts 10: Gold, Silver, Glass, and Cloisonné), Beijing, 1987, p. 49, no. 102 (right). The same conical bowl was previously illustrated in the excavation report in Wenwu, 1961, No. 11, plate page 4, no. 1 (left).

The ‘twin phoenix’ pattern and conical form of the bowl both are well known in Song ceramics. Compare, for example, the Yingqing glazed porcelain conical bowl moulded with ‘twin phoenix’ decoration from the Karlbeck Collection, illustrated by Wirgin, ‘Sung Ceramic Designs,’ B.M.F.E.A., Bulletin no. 42, Stockholm, 1970, pl. 26b. Another similar Yingqing glazed conical bowl with moulded ‘twin phoenix’ design in the Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto, is illustrated by Pierson, Qingbai Ware: Chinese Porcelain of the Song and Yuan Dynasties, London, 2002, p. 54, no. 16, attributed to the Song dynasty (13th century). 

A gilt-silver box and cover decorated with ‘twin phoenix’ in high relief, excavated from a Song dynasty tomb at Chayuanshan, Fuzhou city, now in the collection of the Fujian Provincial Museum, is illustrated in Zhongguo meishu fenlei quanji, Zhongguo jin yin boli falang qi quanji (Illustrated Classification of Chinese Art, Chinese Gold, Silver, Glass, and Cloisonné), Vol. II, Gold and Silver (II), Shijiazhuang, 2004, p. 136, no. 244. Compare also the Song silver box decorated with a similar ‘twin phoenix’ motif excavated in 1996 from a cache at Longtanzi village, Nanyan, Peng’an, Sichuan province, illustrated in the same volume, op. cit., p. 172, no. 306.