Jade, China. Eastern Zhou, 4th to 3rd cent. BC

雙龍紋玉環。中國，東周代，戰國時期，公元前4－3世紀。寬11.2厘米，厚到0.8厘米。維也納私人舊藏。

Curved pendant huang exactly a third of a circle in length. The body of this two-headed dragon is ribbed, with the grooves running not straight, but rather slantedly so that they end on the opposite side. The heads of the dragon have upturned noses which form the eyelets. The mouths are closed, the eyes large and attentive, and the mains form C’s with their ends curled in. The jade’s color is a light green and almost exactly the half of this huang has remained untouched by the weathering, while the other half has been strongly affected and is completely white with a reddish surface, probably because this end of the huang was stuck in loess soil.

A somewhat small, stylistically related jade pendant from the same period with only one dragon head and a likewise ribbed body is featured as no. 113 in the publication “Radiant Stone” by Filippo Salviati.

Notes by Prof. Salviati: This ornament is carved in the shape of a huang, or arc-shaped pendant, with dragon heads at the extremities. The body is thick and slightly rounded and two holes for suspension are drilled in the nose of each animal head. The central portion of the pendant is engraved with the so-called ‘twisted rope’ pattern, made of parallel, slightly twisted grooves separated by thin ridges. The heads are minutely detailed and distinguished from the body by a long crest that is marked with parallel incisions, like the body. Half of the jade is completely altered while the rest is semi-translucent and pale green in colour. The majority of Eastern Zhou dragon-shaped jades that display the ‘twisted rope’ pattern have long, undulating bodies with a head at one extremity and a pointed tail at the other. Examples include one in the British Museum, published in J. Ayers and J. Rawson, Chinese Jades throughout the Ages, Victoria & Albert Museum, London 1975, no.127, and another in the National Museum of History, Taiwan (acc. no.89-00051), reproduced in John Johnston and Chan Lai Pik, 5,000 Years of Chinese Jade, Featuring Selections from the National Museum of History, Taiwan, and the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, San Antonio Museum of Art, 2011, no.39. For a jade carved with two dragon heads at the extremities, see a long ‘hook’ in the Harvard Art Museums, acc. no.1943.50.453, published in Max Loehr and Louisa G. Fitzgerald Huber, Ancient Chinese Jades from the Grenville L. Winthrop Collection in the Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University, Fogg Art Museum (Cambridge, MA) 1975, no.494: http://www.harvardartmuseums.org/collections/object/204774?position=0.

WIDTH 11.2 CM, MAX. THICKNESS 8 MM

From a Viennese collection



Expertise: Wolfmar Zacken (description) & Fillipo Salviati (dating and expertise)