A JADE ARC-SHAPED 'ANIMAL MASK' ORNAMENT EASTERN ZHOU DYNASTY, SPRING AND AUTUMN PERIOD | 東周春秋時期 玉獸面紋拱形飾

Jiang Tao and Liu Yunhui, Jades from the Hei-Chi Collection, Beijing, 2006, pp. 80-81 top.

姜濤及劉雲輝，《熙墀藏玉》，北京，2006年，頁80-81上

Exquisitely carved, the present piece represents one of the rarest, most prestigious type of jade ornaments reserved only for nobility in the Wu and Chu states in the late Spring and Autumn period. A closely related arc-shaped ornament of comparable size and design was unearthed in Yangshan, Jiangsu. The excavated example is similarly modelled with a pair of confronting animal masks flanked by bird heads. Unlike the present example, however, the reverse is decorated and there is a small movable ring, carved from the same block of jade, originally fitted to one end of the ornament; see Yao Qinde with an introduction by Hsio-Yen Shih, ‘Spring and Autumn Period Jades from the State of Wu’, Chinese Jade: Selected Articles from Orientations 1983-2003, Hong Kong, 2005, pp. 114-119, fig. 12, together with a parrot-head arc-shaped ornament, fig. 13.

此飾精緻入微，匠心獨運，極為罕見，應為春秋晚期吳、楚等地高等貴族所用之物。參考江蘇嚴山出土拱形活環珮，其尺寸與此相若，中間同樣飾有凸脊，兩邊琢獸面，對稱相視，每獸兩側鳥首各一，尖喙圓目，背面也有雕飾，從同一玉料雕成之小繫仍存，圖見吳縣文物管理委員會，〈江蘇吳縣春秋吳國玉器窖藏〉，《文物》，1988年11期，頁1-16，彩圖1，並見鸚鵡首拱形玉飾，背面光素，彩圖3。