SHIJIAHE CULTURE, CIRCA 2500-2000 BC

Details

A YELLOW JADE CARVING OF A HEAD
SHIJIAHE CULTURE, CIRCA 2500-2000 BC
The tubular carving is finely carved on the exterior in shallow relief with a face of disintguishing features including a wide flat nose, downturned mouth, and piered ears, below a headdress in the form of a raised band with incised rope-twist design.
1 3/16 in. (3 cm.) high, box

Provenance

Lantien Shanfang Collection, acquired in Taipei in 1998

Brought to you by

Priscilla Kong

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Lot Essay

The present tube tapers gently from the top to bottom, and is carved on one side in relief with a face complete with human facial features.

He is shown wearing a woven headdress and earrings.

Carvings of human faces form an important category among jades from the Shijiahe Culture, but are more often represented on flat rectangular surfaces. Tubular carvings with human faces are significnately rarer.

Compare with a similar tubular jade carving of a human face discovered at the Xiaojia Roof excavation site, Hubei Province, now in Jingzhou Museum and illustrated in Jade Objects of the Shijiahe Culture, Beiijng, 2008, p. 28, no. 3 (fig. 1).
(Text by Wang Mingda)

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