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Lot Essay
Although many different animals have been the subject of Chinese jades, tigers appear to be rare. This rare pouring vessel not only has a small tiger, identifiable by its striped body, forming the handle, but the animal that forms the vessel may also represent a tiger, it’s open jaws forming the spout. A 12th-century carving of a tiger and its cub, from Jianzhong village, Nanjing, Jiangsu province, which is stylistically similar to the tiger forming the handle on the current vessel, is illustrated by Jenny F. So, Chinese Jades from the Cissy and Robert Tang Collection, Art Museum, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2015, p. 179, fig. 36.1.
The shape and design of this vessel is a fanciful archaistic interpretation of the ritual bronze pouring vessels, yi, produced during the early Eastern Zhou period, late 7th-6th century BC. These vessels were raised on four legs and had a spout shaped as an animal head and an animal-form handle, usually a dragon. Several vessels of this type are illustrated by Jenny F. So in Eastern Zhou Ritual Bronzes from the Arthur M. Sackler Collections, vol. III, Arthur M. Sackler Foundation, 1995, pp. 344-47, no. 69 and figs. 69.1-69.5.
The shape and design of this vessel is a fanciful archaistic interpretation of the ritual bronze pouring vessels, yi, produced during the early Eastern Zhou period, late 7th-6th century BC. These vessels were raised on four legs and had a spout shaped as an animal head and an animal-form handle, usually a dragon. Several vessels of this type are illustrated by Jenny F. So in Eastern Zhou Ritual Bronzes from the Arthur M. Sackler Collections, vol. III, Arthur M. Sackler Foundation, 1995, pp. 344-47, no. 69 and figs. 69.1-69.5.