An archaic dark green jade adze, Neolithic period

拍品描述

Chinese Jades from the Ralph Wanger Collection with a later inscribed pictogram Length 6¼ in., 16 cm In Chinese Jades from the Mu-Fei Collection, Bluett & Sons Ltd., London, 1990, cat. no. 1, Brian Morgan suggests that the pairs of horizontal lines carved on the present blade, together with the haft, are likely later alterations. He proposes that the original form more closely resembled the axe formerly in the Sir Joseph Hotung Collection, illustrated in Jessica Rawson, Chinese Jade from the Neolithic to the Qing, London, 1995, cat. no. 10.2. Comparable blades of related form have also been attributed to the Hongshan culture; see, for example, an excavated jade axe illustrated in Gu Fang, The Complete Collection of Jades Unearthed in China, vol. 2: Inner Mongolia, Liaoning, Jilin, Heilongjiang. Beijing, 2005, pl. 44.

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