LATE SHANG DYNASTY, CIRCA 14TH-11TH CENTURY BC

The present jade owl wears a distinctly shaped two-tiered crown, suggesting it may represent a mythical bird with divine powers. Two very similar examples are known, though interestingly all of them have different tiered crowns. The first example is in the Palace Museum, in which the owl is also depicted standing in profile and decorated with scrolls, but wears a three-tiered crown and resultantly is higher in height (13.1 cm.) (fig. 1). It is illustrated in Jadeware (I), The Complete Collection of Treasures of the Palace Museum, Hong Kong, 1995, pl. 63. The second one is in the Aurora Foundation Collection, which is again very similar to the present owl except its crown is only one-tiered, and is shorter in height (4.7 cm.). It is illustrated in Teng Shu-p’ing, Collectors’ Exhibition of Archaic Chinese Jades, Taipei, 1999, pl. 90. A jade owl of different form but with similar scrolls was excavated from the tomb of Fu Hao, consort of King Wu Ding of Shang and illustrated in Zhongguo meishu quanji -9- yuqi, Beijing, 1986, pl. 70.