A PALE GRAY JADE 'MYTHICAL BEAST' GROUP, SONG - MING DYNASTY

Collection of Stephen Junkunc, III (d. 1978), acquired prior to 1963.

來源

史蒂芬•瓊肯三世（1978年逝）收藏，購於1963年之前

Alfred Salmony, Chinese Jade Through the Wei Dynasty, New York, 1963, pl. XLIV-2.

出版

Alfred Salmony，《Chinese Jade Through the Wei Dynasty》，紐約，1963年，圖版XLIV-2

Fashioned from a pebble of considerable size, the carver of this piece has successfully captured a sense of movement and liveliness in the rendering of the mythical creature and its cub as they prowl in a circular shape with heads turned back towards each other. Carvings of animals with their young grew in popularity during the Yuan and Ming dynasty and continued to be made in the Qing period.

A carving of a Buddhist lion and cub playing with a beribboned brocade ball, similarly positioned in a circular head-to-tail composition, attributed to the Ming dynasty, in the Museum of East Asian Art, Bath, was included in the museum’s exhibition Jades from China, Bath, 1994, cat. no. 287, together with a mythical creature rendered with a very similar face, cat. no. 250, with a Southern Song/Yuan attribution.

A recumbent mythical creature that also features the tail curled under one extended rear leg, in the Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, is illustrated in James C.Y. Watt, Chinese Jades from the Collection of the Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, 1989, pl. 35, where it is noted that this pose is ‘also characteristic of the treatment of the dragon in the decorative arts of the early Song period’ (p. 62).

本品圓雕精巧，刻劃瑞獸及其幼獸栩栩如生，獸首朝後互相對望。刻劃長幼靈獸或動物之雕刻，元、明之間開始流行，並延續至清代。

比較一佛獅戲繡球例，圓雕首尾相接構圖與本品相近，斷代明朝，現存於巴斯東亞藝術博物館，曾展於《Jades from China》，巴斯，1994年，編號287，同展另有一例，面容相近，編號250，斷代南宋或元朝。

再比一臥獸例，獸尾捲曲伸於後腿之下，現藏於西雅圖藝術博物館，圖載於屈志仁，《Chinese Jades from the Collection of the Seattle Art Museum》，西雅圖，1989年，圖版35，圖錄敘述，該姿態亦屬宋代早期龍雕造型（頁62）。