SONG DYNASTY (960-1279)

Bears have been perceived as enlightened creatures in China as early as the Han dynasty (206BC-AD220). It was believed that they reside in spiritual mountains and possess the ability to intermediate between heaven and earth. Depictions of bears, as seen on the present jade carving, portray them as unthreatening, harmless creatures. A small white jade figure of a bear was found in the area of the tomb of the Han Emperor, Yuandi (r. 48-33 BC), near Xi'an in Shaanxi province, illustrated by Jessica Rawson in Chinese Jade From the Neolithic to the Qing, London, 1995, p. 351, fig. 2(a). A bear-shaped support dated to the Eastern Han/Eastern Jin dynasty from the Avery Brundage Collection is in the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, illustrated in Sacred Mountains in Chinese Art by Kiyohiko Munakata, University of Illinois Press, Chicago, 1991, p. 70, pl. 16. Another jade receptacle carved in the form of a bear is in the National Palace Museum Taipei, Inv. no. 002842N000000000. This was made during the Qianlong period (1736-1795) as an homage to antiquity, and is inscribed with a six-character mark reading 'da Qing Qianlong fanggu', which may be translated as 'made in the Qianlong period in imitation of antiquity'. A yellowish-green jade carving of a bear, dated to the Song Dynasty or earlier, was sold at Christie's New York on 1 December 1988, lot 66, then again at Christie's New York on 19 September 1996, lot 205, and at Sotheby's Paris on 15 December 2016, lot 20.