A MUGHAL-STYLE CARVED JADE RAMS CUP, 18TH CENTURY

The lustrous and even white stone exquisitely worked in the form of a lobed floral bloom with delicate rounded walls rising steeply from the foot, one side elegantly tapering into an openwork handle modelled in the form of a ram's head depicted turned to one side, the beast sensitively rendered with a serene expression with a slightly open mouth and a beard conjoined to the exterior of the vessel, its head accentuated by a pair of precisely striated curved horns, one extending into and silhouetting the edge of the vessel, the exterior of the vessel decorated in low relief with a band of upright acanthus leaves, all supported on a splayed foot depicted as a lotus bloom with furled petal tips radiating from a rounded centre. 12 by 9.8 cm.