A POWERFULLY CARVED AND RARE CELADON JADE FIGURE OF A BIXIE EASTERN HAN DYNASTY |

skilfully rendered in the form of a bixie prowling with the right front leg striding forward, the mythical beast portrayed staring intensely through bulging eyes below thick curling eyebrows, above a well pronounced snout and agape mouth baring its fangs, the muscular body flanked by a pair of wings dramatically extending from the front haunches and picked out with fine incisions, further depicted with a furcated tail echoing the curved contours of the wings, the white stone with calcified patches

Collection of Alfred Speelman, London, 1970s.  

Auspicious Jade Animals, Alvin Lo Oriental Art Ltd, New York, 2001, cat. no. 4 and illustrated on the cover.

This outstanding carving embodies the flourishing artistic tradition of the production of jade animals and particular enthusiasm for mythical creatures during the Han dynasty. In contrast to the majority of earlier two-dimensional jade carvings, made for the afterlife or to adorn the individual, these figural sculptures were created in the round as independent objects. They assumed a role of being both a sumptuous display item for the appreciation of the elite as well as serving as a reminder of the powerful supernatural forces latent in the world. Evidence of this rich tradition of craftsmanship has been transmitted down through a small number of exceptional carvings, such as the present piece, which capture the creature’s innate power and otherworldliness. A comparable example of this quality includes one sold in our New York rooms, 2nd November 1979, lot 51, and now in the collection of Sir Joseph Hotung. Catalogued as Six Dynasties in the 1979 auction, it was more recently redated to the Han period by Jessica Rawson in Chinese Jade from the Neolithic to the Qing, London, 1995, pl. 26:7, on account of its similarity to a jade bixie discovered in 1972 at Xianyang near present-day Xian, near the tomb of the Han emperor Yuandi (r. 48-33 BC), now housed in the collection of Xianyang City Museum, and illustrated in Zhongguo wenwu jinghua dacidian: jin yin yu shi juan [Encyclopedia of important Chinese relics: gold, silver, jades and other precious stones], Shanghai, 1996, p. 54, pl. 166.

Further examples of related early mythical jade animals include the famous Eastern Han dynasty bixie in the National Palace Museum, Taipei, included in the Museum's exhibition Splendid Treasures. A Hundred Masterpieces of the National Palace Museum on Parade, 2012, cat. no. 18; and the Han dynasty jade winged beast in the Palace Museum, Beijing, illustrated in The Complete Collection of Treasures of the Palace Museum. Jadeware (I), Hong Kong, 1995, pl. 201.

The bixie is a mythical animal with the head of a lion, a single horn, and wings. After being introduced into Chinese culture from the western regions, it was frequently depicted during the transition from the Western Han to the Eastern Han dynasties. It appeared in a variety of media, from large-scale stone sculptures along the spirit paths of mausoleums to small and delicate accessories made of gold, silver and copper. These various artefacts make the bixie an important example of vernacular Chinese representations of mythical animals. See Sun Ji, Handai wuzhi wenhua ziliao tushuo/Illustrated Explanations of the Material Culture of the Han Dynasty, Beijing, 1991, p. 420; Li Ling, 'Lun Zhongguo de you yi shenshou [Discussion of Chinese winged beasts]', Zhongguo xueshu/Chinese Scholarship, vol. 5, January 2001, pp. 62-135.