Footnotes

• The earliest belt hooks in jade appeared in the Eastern Zhou period. Jade belt hooks of the Yuan and Ming dynasties are more ornate than earlier examples. The design shown on the current example, with a younger chi dragon depicted crawling onto a larger adult dragon, implies the conveyance of the message of a father teaching his son on the way of life. Several examples with similar design can be found on Yuan and Ming jade hooks, a notable example being a Yuan dynasty pale green jade belt hook in the Capital Museum, Beijing, illustrated by Gu Fang, The Pictorial handbook of Ancient Chinese Jades, p.340, and another Ming dynasty white jade dragon hook, currently in the Wuxi Museum, illustrated ibid., p.376. See also a white jade belt hook in the British Museum, illustrated by Jessica Rawson, Chinese Jade from the Neolithic to the Qing, Cambridge, 1995, p.346, fig.2.
  
  清乾隆 碧玉蒼龍教子帶鉤
  
  玉質碧綠色。鉤首為龍首，凸眼粗眉，張口露齒，龍首雙角後抿，毛髮後飄。鉤體成琵琶形，帶鉤腹下有一圓形鉤鈕，其上浮雕一螭龍，口銜靈芝，一綹長鬚拖於鉤身，四隻匍匐，尾呈花蕾狀分卷，其頭與鉤首的龍首相對，寓意「蒼龍教子」。
  
  最早至東周時期就出現玉製帶鉤，而到元代時大部分玉帶鉤已具有較高裝飾性。類似以「蒼龍教子」為主題紋飾的例子也多見於元明時期的玉製帶鉤上，例如藏於首都博物館的一件元代螭龍紋玉帶鉤，見古方，《中國古玉器圖典》，北京文物出版社，2007年，頁341，另見376頁著錄一件藏於無錫市博物館的明代蒼龍教子紋玉帶鉤，以及藏於大英博物館的一件明代蒼龍教子紋白玉帶鉤，Jessica Rawson，《Chinese Jade from the Neolithic to the Qing》，劍橋，1995年，頁346，圖2，皆為類似題材的玉製帶鉤。

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Category: Asian Art / Chinese Works of Art

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