THREE EARLY JADE CARVINGS

LATE EASTERN ZHOU/HAN DYNASTY, 4TH CENTURY BC-2ND CENTURY AD

Details

THREE EARLY JADE CARVINGS
LATE EASTERN ZHOU/HAN DYNASTY, 4TH CENTURY BC-2ND CENTURY AD
Comprising a small white jade scabbard slide, the arched top carved with scrolls and a demi-taotie mask at one end, the stone of even tone with rust-red adhesions; a creamy-beige jade split bi finely incised on one side with angular scroll terminating in dragon heads at either blunt end, the stone softly polished and of even tone with some slight grey mottling; and a bi or bi-form fitting, carved on both sides with a field of comma spirals, the stone of semi-translucent milky-grey tone with some opaque buff alteration from burial
1 3/8 in. (3.5 cm.) long and 1¾ and 1 3/8 in. (4.4 and 3.4 cm.) diam., three boxes (3)

Provenance

Scabbard slide: Acquired in the 1970s.
Split bi: Oscar Gerson Collection, San Francisco, early 1970s.
Bi: Acquired in Hong Kong in the mid-1980s.

Exhibited

Scabbard slide and split bi: San Francisco, Golden Gate Park, Hall of Flowers, Treasures of the Orient, Society for Asian Art, 1979, nos. 18f and 17 respectively.

Lot Essay

Compare the two jade slit rings with similar incised designs dated to the early Eastern Zhou period, 8th century BC, illustrated by J. Rawson, Chinese Jade from the Neolithic to the Qing, The British Museum, London, 1995, p. 243, no. 14:9.

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