Bird with small, bottle-horned dragon attached to head
- Greenish, translucent jade with red and yellow suffusion.
- Originally covered by calcification with much pitting in evidence.
- Small dragon has double bottle horns, "chen" eye(not visible in photo), and an anglar 'C' scroll.
- The bird has down swept wings which turn up at the end, and a hooked tail that almost looks like a second pair of feet.
- Same general arrangement as the Raptor with dragon, but also quite different: carving is much thicker, more bird-like.
- The decoration and features are worked in shallow relief, outlined by slanted, incised lines.
- The piece is very much worn through handling and age, with ample calcification visible in the interior recesses.
- Very similar to jade in Zhongguo gu yuqi tudian (The Pictorial Handbook of Ancient Chinese Jades), Wen Wu Publishing, 2007, pp. 169-170.
- Both jades have small flanges or stubbs at the bottom, perhaps for attachment?
- Who know what the dragon on the head might signify?
- 7.4 x 3.5 x 1.1 cm
So what is the upturned plume(?) comming off the back of the bird and reaching the top of its head? It looks a bit like a second tail, and  even gets its own thread relief!!   |
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