A WHITE JADE ‘DRAGON’ ORNAMENT, WESTERN HAN Lot n° 22

A WHITE JADE ‘DRAGON’ ORNAMENT, WESTERN HAN Jade. China, Early Western Han dynasty, Xuzhou type, 2 nd century BC Published: Filippo Salviati, 4000 Years of Chinese Archaic Jades, 2017, pp. 264-265, no. 278. The present jade is shaped from white jade as an arched dragon with a feline-looking head and a large thick body that ends in a pointed tip. The mouth, open to show the fangs, is topped by whiskers filled with striations, also used to mark the tufts of hair behind the head; the snout is upturned and terminates in a curl, while the slanting eye is topped by a thick line standing for the eyebrow. Below each pendant there is a further, dragon carved in openwork: the head is turned towards the back and the sinuous body is enriched with volutes that look like a stylized bird head in profile. The form of this jade matches that of similar pendants discovered in the Western Han tombs at Xuzhou and it is firstly attested amongst the 6th-5th century BC jades discovered at Xiasi, Xichuan, Henan province. LENGTH 13.9 cm Provenance: Private Collection of Irene and Wolfgang Zacke (1942-2022).