? AN EXCEPTIONAL AND EXCEEDINGLY RARE WHITE AND RUSSET JADE ‘DRAGON AND HUMAN HEAD’ CEREMONIAL BLADE, WESTERN ZHOU DYNASTY Expert authentication: Dr. Gu Fang has examined the present lot and confirms its authenticity and the dating above, noting the style of cutting, workmanship, thickness and quality of stone with decomposed areas indicating burial all suggest a dating to the Western Zhou period. He assessed it as a piece of notably good quality. A signed and notarized copy of Dr. Gu's expertise, dated 11 September 2023, accompanies this lot.
Dr. Gu Fang (born 1962) is an internationally renowned scholar of Chinese art and a leading authority on jades. He graduated from the Department of Archaeology at the prestigious Beijing University in 1986 and later studied at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS), where he now serves as a Senior Fellow specializing in archaeological excavations and Chinese jade research. A former visiting scholar at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, he has authored several books on Chinese jades, including the 15-volume The Complete Collection of Jades Unearthed in China (2007), one of the most comprehensive studies of its kind, as well as Chinese Jade: The Spiritual and Cultural Significance of Jade in China (2012).
China, c. 1066-771 BC. Finely carved, the rectangular blade with one straight and one slightly curved edge elegantly rising to the thin beveled cutting edge, opposite from the handle, with a drilled circular aperture. The surface intricately incised depicting a human head whose body merges with that of a coiling dragon. The translucent stone of a magnificent white tone with russet veins and dark inclusions.
Provenance: Collection of Michael Robins, Santa Fe, Mexico. A private collection in New York, United States, acquired from the above.
Condition: Very good condition, commensurate with age, with ancient wear, expected signs of erosion, and natural age-related imperfections. Small nicks. A pair of small losses to the upper and side edges, which have smoothened over centuries, and minor nibbling along the cutting blade.
After the defeat of the Shang and during the initial part of the Western Zhou dynasty, there are no significant changes in the history of jade, and very few items, often copies or actual samples of Shang carvings, have come to light from the excavated tombs. It is only by the middle Western Zhou, around the 10th century BC, that significant innovations in the techniques of carving, the adoption of new motifs, and new styles are seen in jades. The impulse for this new tradition came from the ‘rediscovery’ of Neolithic jades and their artistic vocabulary as well as from contacts with the semi-nomadic people who lived to the north and west of the central plains.
The present jade exemplifies this emerging new style, which can be related to the jades unearthed from the tombs of the lords of the Jin state, in power during the initial years of the Western Zhou period, and excavated at Tianma Qucun, in Shanxi province. The plaque displays a combination of motifs unseen in the previous periods, with the coiled dragon in the center certainly inspired by similar Hongshan jades, while the human heads probably derived, as noted by Filippo Salviatti, from anthropomorphic carvings of the Shijiahe culture. See Jean-Paul Desroches (ed.) et al, Two Americans in Paris: A Quest for Asian Art, Paris, 2016, p. 54.
Weight: 70.2 g
Dimensions: Length 13.7 cm
Literature comparison:
Compare a related white jade pendant with similar ‘dragon and human head’ design, China, Western Zhou dynasty, excavated from tomb no. 63 in the Necropolis of the Marquis of State Jin, Quwo, Shanxi Province, held by the Shanxi Provincial Institute of Archaeology, and illustrated in Gu Fang, The Complete Collection of Jades Unearthed in China, vol. 3, 2005, p. 109.
Museum comparison:
Compare a related white jade handle-shaped blade with a bird resting atop the head of a humanoid figure with similarly carved facial features, China, Western Zhou dynasty, 10th-9th century BC, 26.1 cm long, in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, object number 1985.214.96.
Auction result comparison:
Type: Closely related
Auction: Christie’s New York, 23 September 2022, lot 823
Price: USD 47,880 or approx. EUR 45,500 converted and adjusted for inflation at the time of writing
Description: A very rare and finely carved white jade tablet pendant, Mid- to Western Zhou dynasty, 10th-9th century BC
Expert remark: Compare the closely related form, decorative style, and color of the stone. Note the similar size (13 cm).
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