A salver with a scalloped edge and sixteen lobes, carved decoration in low relief on all surfaces, standing on a short ring foot with carved recess, greyish green nephrite jade

This salver is fashioned to a very high standard in greyish green nephrite jade and polished all over. The interior has been carved in low relief with a multi-petalled central disc from which radiate sixteen petals that extend to the scalloped rim. The junctions between the petals have been raised to give shallow lobes with the intervening ridges being carved as ribs and the outer edge of each petal has been sightly recessed.
The underside has been carved with a ring of leaflets that rise up from around the ring foot, to give the appearance of a calyx. The foot has been recessed and carved as a four-petalled poppy with a four-tiered ring of numerous small petals surrounding a hatched, central disc. The ring itself is formed as the raised outer edges of the four large petals.

W. H. Cope Bequest

This dish was acquired by W. H. Cope Esq. who valued it at £75-0-0. He subsequently bequeathed it to the Victoria & Albert Museum in 1903.

William Henry Cope Esq was considered an authority on ancient ecclesiastical stained glass and on old Plymouth china. He was also an important collector of china, jade and old Venetian and German glass, acquiring many of his pieces from sales of well-known collections such as the Beckford, the Bernal, the Guthrie, the Magniac and the Wells.
He became an Associate of the British Archaeological Association in 1863 and was elected to the BAA council in 1871 and regularly contributed to discussions on a broad range of subjects, often taking along objects from his own collections.
In 1880, Mr. Cope published the first of his articles, on the subject of jade, for the Journal of the BAA. He was elected a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries on 1st July 1886 and was elected Vice-President of the BAA in June 1889, a post he continued to hold until his death in 1903.

This salver was made within the Mughal empire, probably in the late 17th or early 18th century. It has been fashioned to a very high standard from a single piece of greyish green nephrite jade and polished all over. The interior has been carved in low relief with a multi-petalled central disc from which radiate sixteen petals that extend to the scalloped rim. The underside has a ring of small leaves radiating round the ring foot, to give the appearance of a calyx. The foot is recessed and carved as a four-petalled poppy, with a four-tiered ring of numerous small petals surrounding a cross-hatched, central disc. The salver was bequeathed to the V&A in 1903 by W.H. Cope, who had bought it at the London auction of the estate of Colonel Charles Seton Guthrie in 1875.

765-1903