A white jade 'dragon' 'zodiac' pendant, Qing dynasty, 18th - 19th century

Collection of Edward T. Chow (1910-1980).

Sotheby's Hong Kong, 27th May 2014, lot 87.

Ninety Jades for 90 Years, Marchant. London, 2015, cat. no. 37.

Deftly hewn from pure white stone, this rare pendant was once part of a set of twelve related pieces – six of the present shape and six of bell form – which could be combined around a thirteenth panel carved with trigrams and the ‘Heavenly Stems’ to represent a complete sexagenary cycle. The present pendant is expertly engraved with a characterful image of a humanoid dragon. This depiction of an auspicious zodiacal creature in human form comes to represent one year in a twelve year cycle, with the character on the reverse, chen, representing the dragon’s relative position as the fifth of the twelve Earthly Branches.

A similar complete set, in the Qing Court Collection preserved in the Palace Museum, Beijing, is illustrated in The Complete Collection of Treasures of the Palace Museum. Jade Ware (III), Hong Kong, 1995, pl. 20. This set is made up of twelve closely related white pendants decorated with auspicious floral motifs and corresponding poetic titles surrounding a disc with the twelve notes of the Chinese scale (shi’er lü). Compare also another set of twelve pendants in the Palace Museum, six of similar form and six of axe form, similarly depicting the twelve animals of the zodiac, in Compendium of Collections in the Palace Museum, Jade, vol. 9: Qing Dynasty, Beijing, 2011, pl. 258, which when separated could be worn suspended from the belt.

A very small number of related Qianlong period zodiacal pendants are known. Compare a related rectangular white jade pendant featuring a humanoid ox and the character chou, sold from the collection of Dizang Studio at Christie’s London, 14th May 2019, lot 47; a circular pendant similarly featuring a dragon and the character chen sold at Christie’s London, 14th May 2013, lot 29; and another rectangular example featuring a humanoid ram and the character wei sold at Bonhams Hong Kong, 24th November 2012.