A YELLOW JADE PENDANT OF A CROUCHING BEAR, SHANG DYNASTY

拍品描述

A YELLOW JADE PENDANT OF A CROUCHING BEAR, SHANG DYNASTY China, circa 1600-1100 BC. Finely carved, depicting a bear sitting on its haunches with the forelimbs resting on the bent knees, all below a large head with a slightly open mouth revealing its teeth and surmounted by a pair of pointed ears. The surface of the figure neatly incised in double lines with archaic motifs of hooks and scrollwork, and the back of the head pierced horizontally with an aperture for suspension. The translucent stone is of a fine greenish-yellow color with few faint russet veins and patches as well as small areas of creamy ivory-white calcification. Gemological analysis report: A gem report issued by Nederlands Edelsteen Laboratorium on 21 March 2024, number E 2420110, identifies the present lot as “natural nephrite jade” with “no indications of impregnation”. A copy of the report accompanies the lot. Dimensions: Height 6.7 cm The Shang refined Neolithic jade-making practices, fashioning ritual blades and implements of even greater sophistication than those of their predecessors, incorporating jade blades into turquoise-inlaid bronze hafts, and expanding their jade repertoire into representational shapes of humans and animals. Kneeling figures of this type are among the rarest jade artifacts from the Shang dynasty. Examples carved with related features have been found at the tomb of Lady Hao, dated to around 1200 BC, suggesting that this piece was made at around the same time. While the identification and function of these kneeling figures is a matter of speculation, their rarity suggests that “they are likely to have been extremely valuable and to have offered Fu Hao some sort of power or access to power” (see Jessica Rawson, Mysteries of Ancient China, London, 1996, page 108). The bear has been a popular totemic emblem in China since ancient times. China's foundation myths hold that the legendary Yellow Emperor, or Huang Di, early on lived with his tribe in the northwest, presumably in modern Shanxi Province, but then later migrated to Zhuolu, in present-day Hebei Province, where he became a farmer and tamed six different types of ferocious beasts, including the bear, or xiong, with which the Yellow Emperor ever since has been linked. According to legend, Gun — said to have been the great-grandson of the Yellow Emperor and the father of Yu the Great, or Da Yu — stole a special soil with which he planned to build dikes in an attempt to control the Yellow River's constantly recurring and very devastating floods. He failed in his mission, however, and, as punishment for his theft, was killed by Zhurong, the God of Fire. Gun's corpse turned into a yellow bear, or huangxiong, and jumped into a pool. A while later, a golden bear, alternatively said to be a golden dragon, emerged from the corpse's stomach and ascended into heaven, where the Yellow Emperor instructed it to complete his father's work in taming the Yellow River's waters. That bear turned out to be Da Yu, who — according to popular belief — heroically controlled the floods and became the mythological forefather of China's Xia dynasty. Thus, the bear has been prominently associated with legendary rulers and Chinese national foundation myths since the earliest times. Literature comparison: Compare a closely related jade figure of a bear, dated Shang dynasty, Wu Ding period, 3.4 cm tall, in the National Museum of China, Beijing. Auction result comparison: Type: Closely related Auction: Sotheby’s Hong Kong, 2 April 2019, lot 3419 Mid-Estimate: HKD 700,000 or approx. EUR 87,500 converted and adjusted for inflation at the time of writing Expert remark: Compare the closely related modeling, manner of carving, and decoration with similar pose and fine incision work.

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