Note: Modelled with a long upturned snout, tall ears and bulging eyes, this piece appears to depict a zhulong, a modern term used to describe zoomorphic discs with coiled bodies and pig-like snouts. Made in the Neolithic period, these carvings have been recovered at various tomb sites and were probably used as chest ornaments. For a discussion on zhulong see E. Childs-Johnson, ‘Jades of the Hongshan Culture’, Arts Asiatiques, XLVI, December 1991, pp 82-95.

The rounded and finally finished features of the present piece makes it a particularly rare depiction of zhulong. Compare a zoomorphic carving fashioned in the round, in the Tianjin Museum, illustrated in Tianjin shi yishu bowuguan cang yu [Jades in the Tianjin City Museum], Hong Kong, 1993, pl. 22; and another in the collection of Simon Kwan, included in the exhibition Exquisite Jade Carving, University Museum and Art Gallery, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, 1996, cat. no. 45. See also a jade zhulong with similarly well-defined features, in the Tianjin Museum, illustrated in Zhongguo yuqi quanji [The complete collection of Chinese jade], vol. 1, Fuzhou, 1993, pl. 30, together with one in the Liaoning Provincial Museum, Shenyang, pl. 27; another unearthed at Ganfanyingzi, Aohanqi, in Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, illustrated in Gu Fang, The Complete Collection of Unearthed Jades in China, Beijing, 2005, vol. 2, pl. 24; and a further example, from the collections of A.W. Bahr and Arthur M. Sackler, sold at Christie’s New York, 1st December 1994, lot 73.

Sotheby's. Chinese Art, including Snuff Bottles and Jades from an Old Hong Kong Family Collection, Hong Kong, 28 november 2019