A VERY RARE PAIR OF KNIVES AND SCABBARDS TANG DYNASTY, 7TH CENTURY

the accompanying scabbards of varying size, one slightly shorter than the other and attached to each other on one side, each made of wood and reinforced with thin gold and silver sheet superbly decorated with overall designs of birds and beasts frolicking amidst scrolling palmettes and lotus flowers all finely engraved on a dense ring-matted ground, interspersed with small cloisons holding turquoise inlays, the knives, now fastened to their scabbards through corrosion, their handles similarly embellished with finely engraved gold sheeted casing and cloisons with turquoise inlays

Chinese Gold and Silver in the Carl Kempe Collection, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., 1954-55, cat. no. 36

Bo Gyllensvärd, Chinese Gold and Silver in the Carl Kempe Collection, Stockholm, 1953, pl. 36.

Bo Gyllensvärd, 'T'ang Gold and Silver', Bulletin of the Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities, no. 29, 1957, pl. 1a, figs. 8a, 55d, 55g, 77p, 87r.

Chinese Gold and Silver in the Carl Kempe Collection, The Museum of Art and Far Eastern Antiquities in Ulricehamn, Ulricehamn, 1999, pl. 34.