SOUTHERN SONG-EARLY MING DYNASTY, 12TH-15TH CENTURY

Small jade figures of recumbent hounds of this type are variously shown with their heads resting on or just above their outstretched forelegs, raised alertly or turned to the side. The bodies of these figures are slender, the knobby backbones well defined and the long tails usually coiled on one haunch. They have variously been dated anywhere from the Tang to the Ming dynasty, the earlier dating originally based on the inclusion of pottery figures of hounds in Tang-dynasty tombs. Such a relationship was made by Desmond Gure in his discussion of a yellow jade hound in his collection illustrated by Gure in “Selected Examples from the Jade Exhibition at Stockholm, 1963; A Comparative Study”, B.M.F.E.A., no. 36, Stockholm, 1964, pl. 25, figs. 1 and 2, where the yellow jade figure, fig. 1, is shown with a Sui-dynasty pottery figure of a hound, fig. 2. Each has a raised head pointing forward above the out-stretched forelegs, and has similar long ears. Unlike the pottery hound the jade hound wears a collar suspending a bell, a feature seen on the present figure. This same figure was included in the exhibition, Chinese Jade Animals, Hong Kong Museum of Art, 1996, no. 75, where it was dated Tang-Song dynasty. Three other related figures were included in that exhibition, no. 68, dated Tang and carved in a position similar to the present figure, and nos. 98 and 99, dated Song, each with its head turned to the side. For another figure shown in a similar position see the hound illustrated by Jessica Rawson, Chinese Jade throughout the ages, Victoria and Albert Museum, T.O.C.S., vol. 40, 1973-75, no. 245, where it is dated Tang or early Song.

Two other comparable jade figures of hounds are illustrated by James C. Y. Watt, Chinese Jades from the Han to Ch’ing, The Asia Society, 1980, one of greyish-black color from the Guan-fu Collection, dated Tang, no. 37, and a white jade example, dated Song, from the Robert H. Ellsworth Collection, no. 38.