A RARE PALE GREENISH-WHITE JADE EAR CUP

Details

A RARE PALE GREENISH-WHITE JADE EAR CUP
WARRING STATES PERIOD

Of oval section flanked by a pair of thick ear-shaped handles, the exterior finely incised with a band of delicate scroll formed by the curvilinear bodies of alternating pairs of addorsed dragons and birds, set between bands of highly stylized dragons carved in shallow relief, the band above the flat base centered on each of the long sides by a taotie mask and repeated on the top of the handles, while the band at the mouth rim continues onto the sides of the handles, the interior with another finely incised border of crossed scrolls and ruyi motifs below the rim, pierced with a series of evenly spaced holes; three in each handle and a row of three below two more near the rim at each end, the stone with lustrous polish and of pale grayish-green tone with opaque white mottling throughout, some pale brown coloring and areas of russet color on the handles, some earth encrustation, chips--5 1/8in. (13cm.) long

Provenance

A.W Bahr Collection, Weybridge

Literature

Stanley Charles Nott, Chinese Jade Throughout the Ages, New York, 1937, pl. XXIX:left

Lot Essay

This cup, called yushang in Chinese tomb inventories, is approximated in other materials, such as lacquer, bronze, pottery and mother-of-pearl shell during Warring States and Han eras. Compare the winged cup of Warring States date in the Freer Gallery of Art, Washington, D. C., S. H. Hansford, Chinese Carved Jades, London, 1968, pl. 39B; Thomas Lawton, Chinese Art of the Warring States Period, Freer Gallery of Art, Washington, D. C., 1982, pl. 2. The incised decoration, reminiscent of decoration on painted lacquer ware, on the base of the Freer jade is similar to that on the sides of the present lot, with curvilinear dragon parts identifiable variously as the head, wing, foot and tail. The quality of the decoration, with its rhythmic dynamism, suggests that both cups were owned by aristocrats

See, also, a pair of cups in the Winthrop Collection, Fogg Art Museum, illustrated by Loehr, Ancient Chinese Jades, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1975, no. 522, where incised curvilinear motifs are on the base and interior. Another example was included in the exhibition, 3000 Years of Chinese Jade, Arden Gallery, New York, January 10-February 11, 1939, Catalogue no. 183 and again in the C. T. Loo exhibition, Chinese Archaic Jades, Norton Gallery of Art, West Palm Beach, Florida, January 20-March 1, 1950, Catalogue l. XXXVII:1