.jpg?w=1)
.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
The recumbent tiger is finely carved with its head turned back over its shoulder, its head adorned with two flattened horns and its mouth to reveal teeth, and wings are tucked against its powerfully muscled body.
Tiger is one of the Four Celestial Emblems, also known as guardians of the cardinal directions. As the White Tiger of the West, it embodies martial prowess and protective power. During the Han dynasty, the tiger's form frequently merged with that of the winged beast known as bixie- apotropaic creatures originally placed in tombs to ward off evil. Such hybrid figures, combining lion and tiger elements, came to symbolise both auspiciousness and invincibility. The present carving, though more closely resembles a tiger, incorporates both horns and wings, which are attributed to bixie, further uniting the directional authority of the White Tiger with the protective functions of the bixie in on potent representation.
The present jade tiger is exceptionally rare, with no identical examples published. Compare to a late Western to Eastern Han jade bixie in the National Palace Museum, Taipei, collection no. guyu004086N (fig. 1), which shares similar bulging eyes, flattened forehead, and bared-teeth expression. A jade winged horse from Han dynasty in the Palace Museum, Beijing, collection no. gu00087093 (fig. 2), offers close comparison in the muscular rendering and wing treatment. A gilt-bronze tiger-form weight of the Han dynasty from the National Palace Museum, Taipei, collection no. zengtong000341N, further demonstrates this zoomorphic interpretation across different media, with its facial features particularly akin to those of the present lot.
Tiger is one of the Four Celestial Emblems, also known as guardians of the cardinal directions. As the White Tiger of the West, it embodies martial prowess and protective power. During the Han dynasty, the tiger's form frequently merged with that of the winged beast known as bixie- apotropaic creatures originally placed in tombs to ward off evil. Such hybrid figures, combining lion and tiger elements, came to symbolise both auspiciousness and invincibility. The present carving, though more closely resembles a tiger, incorporates both horns and wings, which are attributed to bixie, further uniting the directional authority of the White Tiger with the protective functions of the bixie in on potent representation.
The present jade tiger is exceptionally rare, with no identical examples published. Compare to a late Western to Eastern Han jade bixie in the National Palace Museum, Taipei, collection no. guyu004086N (fig. 1), which shares similar bulging eyes, flattened forehead, and bared-teeth expression. A jade winged horse from Han dynasty in the Palace Museum, Beijing, collection no. gu00087093 (fig. 2), offers close comparison in the muscular rendering and wing treatment. A gilt-bronze tiger-form weight of the Han dynasty from the National Palace Museum, Taipei, collection no. zengtong000341N, further demonstrates this zoomorphic interpretation across different media, with its facial features particularly akin to those of the present lot.