AN UNUSUAL MOTTLED GREYISH-GREEN AND BUFF JADE PLAQUE

MIDDLE WESTERN ZHOU DYNASTY, 10TH CENTURY BC

細節

AN UNUSUAL MOTTLED GREYISH-GREEN AND BUFF JADE PLAQUE
MIDDLE WESTERN ZHOU DYNASTY, 10TH CENTURY BC
Of irregular outline and slightly convex, one side carved as the intertwined serpent-like bodies of four abstract dragons, two with dragon heads with upturned snout, circular eye and crest and open jaws appearing to devour the bodies of the other two dragons with humanoid heads, depicted with rounded nose, circular eye, ear and long swept-back hair, the irregular outline of the plaque following the form of their heads and bodies, pierced through the center, the once olive-green stone now of mottled grey-green and buff color and opaque from alteration in burial
2 1/8 in. (5.4 cm.) across

來源

C.T. Loo & Cie.
Acquired in October 1974.

拍品專文

The design of intertwined serpentine bodies terminating in either dragon or human-like heads on this unusual plaque is indicative of the varied and lively designs on jades during the middle and late Western Zhou period. Rubbings of several jade pendants dated to Middle Western Zhou, 10th century BC, from Shaanxi Fufeng Qiangjia, bearing similar designs are illustrated by J. Rawson, Chinese Jade from the Neolithic to the Qing, British Museum, 1995, p. 237, fig. 1. One especially of an intertwined dragon-head creature and a human-head creature has an irregular outline similar to the present plaque. Compare, also, the related plaque, also carved on only one side with the entwined bodies of two pairs of dragons and a phoenix, dated to Western Zhou, included in the exhibition, Chinese Archaic Jades from the Kwan Collection, Art Gallery, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1994, no. 136.