c.1300 Silver and Parcel gilt cup

This type of drinking cup (or 'belt-bowl') It was carried in a bag that hung from the traveller's belt, Ithad its origins in eastern Asia, spread west during the Mongol expansion of the early thirteenth century.
Note the gilded central medallion with a winged sphinx with dragon-headed tail against a foliate ground.
Private collection. Auctioned by Sotheby's, London, in 2007

Exhibited by:

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