Lot 914. A pair of opaque altered jade dragon-form pendants, Warring States period, 5th-4th century BC. Estimate $100,000 – $150,000. Photo Christie's Image Ltd 2016

Each flat plaque is finely carved in the shape of a dragon with upward-turned head at one end of the sharply arched, S-shaped body, and a coiled tail at the other end that terminates in a bird's head with curled beak. The body is carved on both sides in low relief with comma spirals and the tail with scales on either side of a central striated band, and each body is drilled from both sides with a suspension hole. Each is of olive-green color with extensive opaque ivory or buff-colored alteration. 3 ¼ in. (8.3 cm.) wide, box

Provenance: B. K. Wong, Hong Kong, 29 October 1993.

Literature: Nicole De Bisscop, Chinese Jade and Scroll Paintings from the Dongxi Collection, Brussels, 1995, p. 49, no. 19. 
Filippo Salviati, "The Dongxi Collection of Chinese Jades", Orientations, November 1995, p. 49, fig. 8.

Exhibited: Chinese Jade and Scroll Paintings from the Dongxi Collection, Kredietbank Gallery, Brussels, 25 October - 17 December 1995; Kredietbank Luxembourg, 1 February - 13 April 1996, no. 19. 

Notes: Compare the similar S-shaped dragon pendant, also with bird's-head tail, in the Grenville L. Winthrop Collection, illustrated by M. Loehr in Ancient Chinese Jades, Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University, 1975, pp. 287 and 293, no. 427, which has a similar pointed ear, as well as comma spirals on the body, but is somewhat more elaborate than the present pendants. Other related pendants are also illustrated pp. 286, and 288 to 293, nos. 423 to 426. All of these pendants have a small suspension hole below the upper edge of the curved body indicating their orientation when suspended, and based on this orientation the heads would have either been facing upwards, like those of no. 427 and the present plaque or backwards facing the arched body. See, also, the similar pendant from Yutaishan, Jingzhou, Hubei province, now in the Jingzhou Museum, illustrated in The Complete Collection of Jades Unearthed in China, Beijing, 2005, p. 111.

Christie's. DONGXI STUDIO- IMPORTANT CHINESE JADE AND HARDSTONE CARVINGS FROM A DISTINGUISHED PRIVATE COLLECTION, 17 March 2016, New York, Rockefeller Plaza