AN EXTREMELY RARE SPINACH GREEN JADE ARCHED DRAGON Katalognummer: JAK0318-029 Jade China Eastern Zhou, Warring States period, 4th – 3rd century BC 龍形玉佩 - 東周, 战国, 公元前4世紀-前3世紀 LENGTH 13.1 CM - WIDTH 2 CM 長13.1 厘米 -寬 2 厘米 Dragon-shaped pendants with thin, sinuous bodies bent in dramatic forms are a common category of Eastern Zhou jades. However, the present example is carved in a rather rare and extremely elegant stance. The body is strongly arched, pierced in the middle with a hole for suspension, while both the neck and tail, which ends in a graceful curl, make hairpin curves that terminate at approximately the same height. At the bottom centre of the pendant there is a pair of “fins” or appendages spread open on the left and right and decorated with tiny incised, parallel lines. The same pattern is used to fill the crest, the tip of the tail and a short projection carved where the lower body bends. Instead, the snout of the dragon is decorated with a check-board pattern of intersecting, thin lines, while the body is covered with tiny curls arranged in an orderly pattern and joined between them through lines incised on the surface. The jade is of a strong spinach green colour and has a unique glassy polishing. An old collector label written in Italian is applied on one side of the pendant. A matching, slightly longer Eastern Zhou pendant (16.2 cm) carved in exactly the same form and part of the Qing dynasty court collection is presently housed in the Gugong or Palace Museum, Beijing: see Zhou Nanquan, Gugong bowuyuan zang wenwu zhenpin quanji - Yuqi (shang) 故宮博物院藏文物珍品全集 ．玉 器上 (The Complete Collection of Treasures of the Palace Museum: Jadeware I), Hong Kong 1995, no.149. Of similar form and carved in light green jade are also a pair of dragon-shaped pendants in the Harvard Art Museums collection (accession number 1943.50.443), published in M. Loehr and L.G. Fitzgerald Huber, Ancient Chinese jades from the Grenville L. Winthrop collection in the Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge 1975, no.433. Startpreis 起始價: € 3.000 Schätzpreis 估計/估算: € 6.000 Expertise: Prof. Filippo Salviati From the collection of an important Roman family, as sold at Babuino auction house, Rome, 15 December 2017, Lot 684. All jades in this catalogue have been professionally examined, authenticated and described by Prof. Filippo Salviati. Professor Salviati teaches Chinese and Korean art at Sapienza University in Rome, in the Italian Institute of Oriental Studies. He is a world expert on archaic Chinese jades, having released multiple publications and being cited by renowned auction houses such as Sotheby’s. The microscopic images made available here, show that the weathering of the jade has occurred over a long period of time. Furthermore in the magnification one can reconstruct the workings of the jade. The two aforementioned criteria are exactly what counts in the authentication of archaic jades – the difficult and elaborate workmanship by hand and the subsequent weathering of the jade over centuries. The microscopic enlargements show how the patterns were ground out in many small steps, sometimes over months, and that the weathering actually occurs above the carvings, meaning it occurred after the jade was completed.
AN EXTREMELY RARE SPINACH GREEN JADE ARCHED DRAGON Katalognummer: JAK0318-029 Jade China Eastern Zhou, Warring States period, 4th – 3rd century BC 龍形玉佩 - 東周, 战国, 公元前4世紀-前3世紀 LENGTH 13.1 CM - WIDTH 2 CM 長13.1 厘米 -寬 2 厘米 Dragon-shaped pendants with thin, sinuous bodies bent in dramatic forms are a common category of Eastern Zhou jades. However, the present example is carved in a rather rare and extremely elegant stance. The body is strongly arched, pierced in the middle with a hole for suspension, while both the neck and tail, which ends in a graceful curl, make hairpin curves that terminate at approximately the same height. At the bottom centre of the pendant there is a pair of “fins” or appendages spread open on the left and right and decorated with tiny incised, parallel lines. The same pattern is used to fill the crest, the tip of the tail and a short projection carved where the lower body bends. Instead, the snout of the dragon is decorated with a check-board pattern of intersecting, thin lines, while the body is covered with tiny curls arranged in an orderly pattern and joined between them through lines incised on the surface. The jade is of a strong spinach green colour and has a unique glassy polishing. An old collector label written in Italian is applied on one side of the pendant. A matching, slightly longer Eastern Zhou pendant (16.2 cm) carved in exactly the same form and part of the Qing dynasty court collection is presently housed in the Gugong or Palace Museum, Beijing: see Zhou Nanquan, Gugong bowuyuan zang wenwu zhenpin quanji - Yuqi (shang) 故宮博物院藏文物珍品全集 ．玉 器上 (The Complete Collection of Treasures of the Palace Museum: Jadeware I), Hong Kong 1995, no.149. Of similar form and carved in light green jade are also a pair of dragon-shaped pendants in the Harvard Art Museums collection (accession number 1943.50.443), published in M. Loehr and L.G. Fitzgerald Huber, Ancient Chinese jades from the Grenville L. Winthrop collection in the Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge 1975, no.433. Startpreis 起始價: € 3.000 Schätzpreis 估計/估算: € 6.000 Expertise: Prof. Filippo Salviati From the collection of an important Roman family, as sold at Babuino auction house, Rome, 15 December 2017, Lot 684. All jades in this catalogue have been professionally examined, authenticated and described by Prof. Filippo Salviati. Professor Salviati teaches Chinese and Korean art at Sapienza University in Rome, in the Italian Institute of Oriental Studies. He is a world expert on archaic Chinese jades, having released multiple publications and being cited by renowned auction houses such as Sotheby’s. The microscopic images made available here, show that the weathering of the jade has occurred over a long period of time. Furthermore in the magnification one can reconstruct the workings of the jade. The two aforementioned criteria are exactly what counts in the authentication of archaic jades – the difficult and elaborate workmanship by hand and the subsequent weathering of the jade over centuries. The microscopic enlargements show how the patterns were ground out in many small steps, sometimes over months, and that the weathering actually occurs above the carvings, meaning it occurred after the jade was completed.
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.jpg "Source: Christie's")
.jpg "Source: Christie's")
