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A Celadon and pale russet jade 'Shaman' Comb Western Zhou Dynasty, Dawenkou Culture image 1
A Celadon and pale russet jade 'Shaman' Comb Western Zhou Dynasty, Dawenkou Culture image 2
A Celadon and pale russet jade 'Shaman' Comb Western Zhou Dynasty, Dawenkou Culture image 3
A Celadon and pale russet jade 'Shaman' Comb Western Zhou Dynasty, Dawenkou Culture image 4
A Celadon and pale russet jade 'Shaman' Comb Western Zhou Dynasty, Dawenkou Culture image 5
A Celadon and pale russet jade 'Shaman' Comb Western Zhou Dynasty, Dawenkou Culture image 6
A Celadon and pale russet jade 'Shaman' Comb Western Zhou Dynasty, Dawenkou Culture image 7
A Celadon and pale russet jade 'Shaman' Comb Western Zhou Dynasty, Dawenkou Culture image 8
A Celadon and pale russet jade 'Shaman' Comb Western Zhou Dynasty, Dawenkou Culture image 9
A Celadon and pale russet jade 'Shaman' Comb Western Zhou Dynasty, Dawenkou Culture image 10
A Celadon and pale russet jade 'Shaman' Comb Western Zhou Dynasty, Dawenkou Culture image 11
A Celadon and pale russet jade 'Shaman' Comb Western Zhou Dynasty, Dawenkou Culture image 12
PROPERTY FROM THE ESTATE OF ROBERT P. YOUNGMAN
Lot 11

A Celadon and pale russet jade 'Shaman' Comb
Western Zhou Dynasty, Dawenkou Culture

15 March 2021, 10:00 EDT
New York

Sold for US$20,312.50 inc. premium

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A Celadon and pale russet jade 'Shaman' Comb

Western Zhou Dynasty, Dawenkou Culture
Of rounded rectangular outline, with fourteen graduated flattened teeth along one edge, the shaft carved on both sides in extremely low relief with a shaman-like image, the head with a large swathe of neatly-channeled hair, the body stylized with neatly cut channels and terminating in a dragon-like-tail.
2 9/16in (6.5cm) wide

Footnotes

西周 大汶口文化 神人紋玉梳

For a very similar depiction on a handle-shaped object in the Palace Museum, see Gugong Bowuyuan Cang Wenwu Zhenpin Quanji (Complete Collection of Treasures of the Palace Museum) Jadeware I, Hong Kong, 1995, p. 104-105, no. 86

Western Zhou jade carvings with their partially humanoid motifs, evolved from Shang prototypes which depict a crouching human with bent arms framing the torso above the sharply bent legs, and wearing a headdress. Two such carvings of curved outline from the Shang dynasty tomb of Lady Fu Hao at Anyang are illustrated in The Jades from Yinxu, Beijing, 1982, pls. 109 and 113.

See Christie's, Hong Kong, Chinese Jades from the Yangdetang Collection, Part II, 28 November 2018, lot 2744 for a partially human-form pendant of curved outline; and another sold Christie's, New York, 16 March 2016, lot 911, both from the Western Zhou period and which share some characteristics in the crouching figures depicted.

A late 5th century BCE comb with incised scroll decoration now in the Hubei Provincial Museum was un-earthed in the famous tomb of Marquis Yi of Zeng, excavated 1978 in Suixian, Hubei and found directly underneath Marquis Yi's head. A group of five jade ornaments including a Zhou dynasty comb were offered at Sotheby's, New York, 18 March 2014, lot 155.

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