THREE SMALL GREENISH-GREY JADE ANIMAL CARVINGS

LATE SHANG/EARLY WESTERN ZHOU DYNASTY, CIRCA 1200-1000 BC

Details

THREE SMALL GREENISH-GREY JADE ANIMAL CARVINGS
LATE SHANG/EARLY WESTERN ZHOU DYNASTY, CIRCA 1200-1000 BC
One realistically carved as the head of a hare with slightly rounded eyes and long swept-back ears with a circular depression at the base of each and a slit-like separation between the two, with a bullnose channel drilled through the lower jaw; one a miniature block-like figure of a crouching animal with short tail and beveled back, the underside with a bullnose perforation; and a fragmentary body of a recumbent ox with rectangular eyes, with the remains of a yoke around the neck
2 1/8, 1 5/8 and 1½ in. (5.3, 4 and 3.8 cm.) long (3)

Provenance

Hare's head: A.W. Bahr Collection, Weybridge, 1963.
Crouching animal: Chang Nai-chi Collection.
J.T. Tai & Co., New York, prior to 1966.
Buffalo: J.T. Tai & Co., New York, prior to 1966.

Exhibited

Hare's head: Sculptural Jades of China, Asia House Gallery, New York, 13 April - 11 June 1972, no. 2.
Crouching animal: Archaic Chinese Jades, The University Museum, Philadelphia, February 1940, pl. XV, no. 290.

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Lot Essay

The very rare head of a hare is stylistically similar to the head of an entire figure of a hare (2 inches long) in the Norton Museum of Art, illustrated by J. Finlay, The Chinese Collection: Selected Works from the Norton Musuem of Art, 2003, pp. 126-7, no. 36. It is noted that "rabbits of this type appear to be a Western Zhou innovation, and examples have been found in Western Zhou tombs at Baoji, in Shaanxi province". See Baoji Yu guo mudi, vol. 2, col. pl. 28 (4), and pl. 185 (4,5). The fragment of the ox is similar to a figure excavated from Western Zhou Tomb No. 63, Marquis of Jin necropolis, Quwo, Shanxi province, illustrated in The Complete Collection of Jades Unearthed in China - 3 - Shanxi, Beijing, 2005, p. 120.

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