A RARE YELLOWISH-GREEN JADE BIRD-FORM SEAL

Details

A RARE YELLOWISH-GREEN JADE BIRD-FORM SEAL
LATE EASTERN ZHOU DYNASTY

Well carved as a seated bird, possibly a phoenix, with curved beak, short crest and bead-like eyes, with finely incised bands of striations and chevrons on the arched neck, layered wings and curved tail, pierced vertically through the top of the head and horizontally through the body, its long legs bent beneath its body atop a square base carved on the underside with the archaic character gong, the translucent stone softly polished and now with extensive opaque buff calcification--1 1/4 in. (3.2cm.) high, brocade box

Provenance

Dr. Robert Bloch

Literature

Robert Bloch, Jade, Munich, 1979, pl. 41, detail pl. 42 and top col. pl. opposite p. 64

Lot Essay

It is rare to find a carving of this type with a seal on the base. A small square seal in the Winthrop Collection, dated Han or earlier, is carved with the same character, gong, which may be translated as 'duke', Loehr, Ancient Chinese Jades, 1975, no. 582

For the carving of the phoenix itself, one may compare stylistically similar pieces in the Winthrop Collection, Loehr, Ancient Chinese Jades, 1975, no. 415 and no. 440; in the Sonnenschein Collection, Salmony, Archaic Chinese Jades, 1952, no. 7; and in the collection of Joseph E. Hotung, included in the exhibition, Chinese Jade Carving, Hong Kong Museum of Art, 1983, Catalogue no. 82