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PROPERTY FROM THE ESTATE OF ROBERT P. YOUNGMAN
Lot 10
A russet, celadon and calcified jade figural pendant Western Zhou Dynasty
15 March 2021, 10:00 EDT
New YorkSold for US$16,562.50 inc. premium
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A russet, celadon and calcified jade figural pendant
Western Zhou Dynasty
Of flattened curved outline, the figure seated with knees drawn in, with a coiled dragon forming the body and with the face in profile on the convex edge below an elaborate bird-like head-dress, the decoration formed from well-delineated simple ridged channels to both sides, pierced for suspension at both ends and also simple piercing to the legs, dragon and the earrings.
3 1/8in (8cm) across, approximately
Of flattened curved outline, the figure seated with knees drawn in, with a coiled dragon forming the body and with the face in profile on the convex edge below an elaborate bird-like head-dress, the decoration formed from well-delineated simple ridged channels to both sides, pierced for suspension at both ends and also simple piercing to the legs, dragon and the earrings.
3 1/8in (8cm) across, approximately
Footnotes
西周 人形玉珮
A very similar jade pendant with comparable cut-out piercings and overall profile, is illustrated in Gugong Bowuyuan Cang Wenwu Zhenpin Quanji (Complete Collection of Treasures of the Palace Museum) Jadeware I, Hong Kong, 1995, p. 122, no. 102.
Compare with a very similarly envisioned jade zoomorphic pendant illustrated by Liu Yang, Translucent World, Chinese Jade from the Forbidden City, Sydney, 2000, p.66, no. 19, where the author notes that figures such as these, combining a sacred human and a dragon or phoenix, were a new form created during the Western Zhou dynasty. Their prototype can be traced to earlier Neolithic (Liangzhu culture) models which combines images of a deity and animal mask or to nearer precedents of Shang jade figures: two pendants excavated from the Fuhao tomb depict combines bird and human figures with bent legs as illustrated in line drawings by Jessica Rawson, Chinese Jade from the Neolithic to the Qing, London, British Museum, 1995, pp. 218-219, figs. 1-3, and another plaque dated to the 9th century BCE illustrated on p. 51, fig. 38.
For an earlier Shang dynasty example, see John Finlay, The Chinese Collection, Selected Works from the Norton Museum of Art, West Palm Beach, 2003, pp. 112-113, no. 25.
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