A RARE PALE GRAYISH-WHITE JADE HUMAN-FORM PENDANT

Details

A RARE PALE GRAYISH-WHITE JADE HUMAN-FORM PENDANT
WESTERN ZHOU DYNASTY, CA. 1100-800 B.C.

The flat plaque tapering towards the top edge where it is drilled from one side with a hole for stringing, both sides carved and cut out with a human figure seated with legs drawn up beneath the coiled dragon which forms the arms and trunk of the body, the head carved with small triangular eyes, large nose and long hair swept back from under the ears to become the striated, lower jaw of the dragon arched over the figure's head to balance atop a smaller human figure seated below, the semi-translucent stone of even color and with satiny polish, traces of earth encrustation--3¼in. (8.2cm.) long

Provenance

Mrs. Christian R. Holmes Collection, no. J035

Literature

C.T. Loo and P. Pelliot, Jades Archaiques de la Chine, Paris, 1925, pl. XXVIII:2

Exhibited

London, Royal Academy of Arts, International Exhibition of Chinese Art, 1935-36, no. 300

Lot Essay

The rich program of emblematic transformed human in fetal position and dragon forms on this piece is typically Western Zhou in spirit but based on a well-known Shang prototype. Shang prototypes of this symbolically potent image depict a similar human in crouching position with arms curled inward ending in claws in place of the Zhou interpretation of dragon curl and with legs also ending in claws curled tightly under the body. This transformational image is well documented in the Fu Hao burial, see Yinxu Fu Hao mu, Beijing, n.d., figs. 96:1, pl. 192, 81:1-4, p. 154, pls. 32:1-4

Two well-known jade versions of Western Zhou date that closely approximate the Sackler piece come from a burial at Tanghu, Xinzheng County, Henan, Wenwu ziliao congkan, 1978:2, figs. 7:4-5, 62, 65, p. 48. And another which, like the Sackler example, includes a diminutive, crouching human at its back, is illustrated in a rubbing in Guyu Jinying, Taiwan, 1989-90, p. 42