Stem Cup for an Altar

Stemmed cups resembling wine vessels used at court figure prominently on Chinese Buddhist altars, where they are placed before devotional images and filled with water. A band of heart-shaped motifs on the stem of this cup evokes the head of the curved scepter carried by Buddhist deities and symbolic of monastic authority. On the bowl of the cup, Tibetan letters mounted above lotus blossoms are surrounded by coiling leaf patterns.