LATE SPRING AND AUTUMN PERIOD/HAN DYNASTY, 6TH CENTURY BC-1ST CENTURY AD

This finely polished chape of elegant shape and good yellow-green color is a fine example of a type of sword fitting seen in the late Eastern Zhou and Han periods that was attached to the bottom of the scabbard. The angular scroll pattern seen on many of these chapes seems to have evolved from the taotie mask. Compare the similar example dated to late Zhou illustrated by S. Jenyns, Chinese Archaic Jades in the British Museum, 1951, pl. XXXIV (bottom right), and another illustrated by Bo Zhongmo, Guyu Jingying (The Art of Jade Carving in Ancient China), Taiwan, 1989-90, p. 34, pl. 65 (left), which also illustrates rubbings of the side and the bottom showing the attachment holes.

The huang is similar in outline and style of carving to a single and a pair of huang illustrated by Yang Boda, Chinese Archaic Jades from the Simon Kwan Collection, Art Gallery, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1994, nos. 149 and 150.