An exceptional agate 'demon mask' fitting, Neolithic period, Shandong, Longshan Culture (c. 3000-1700 BC)
Lot 700. An exceptional agate 'demon mask' fitting, Neolithic period, Shandong, Longshan Culture (c. 3000-1700 BC); 3.9 cm, 1 1/2 in. Estimate 300,000 — 400,000 HKD. Lot Sold 1,187,500 HKD (151,703 USD). © Sotheby's.
the front side carved in varying levels of relief with strongly defined facial features, portrayed with slanting elliptical eyes with rounded pupils flanking a high-bridged nose with curled back nostrils, an open mouth revealing fangs and clenching teeth, the reverse side incised with an intricate design of demonic mask and drilled with a groove at the upper part, the fitting pierced through vertically with an aperture, of translucent tawny agate.
Exhibited: Angus Forsyth and Brian McElney, Jades from China, The Museum of East Asian Art, Bath, 1994, cat. no. 65.
Literature: Roger Keverne (ed.), Jade, London, 1991, p. 67, fig. 29.
This mask also share similarities with anthropomorphic jade carvings attributed to the Shijiahe culture in Hubei province, such as two masks unearthed at Xiaojiawuji, Tianmen, illustrated in Gu Fang, The Complete Collection of Unearthed Jades in China, Beijing, 2005, vol. 10, pls 2 and 3, together with one excavated at Luojia Bailing, Tianmen, pl. 30; one excavated from the Western Zhou tomb at Zhangjiapo, Chang'an, Shaanxi province, but attributed to the Shijiahe culture, illustrated in Jessica Rawson, Mysteries of Ancient China, London, 1996, pl. 54; another from the collection of Henry J. Oppenheim, now in the British Museum, London, illustrated in Roger Keverne (ed.), Jade, op.cit., pl. 47; and a further mask attributed to the latter years of the Shijiahe culture, included in Collectors' Exhibition of Archaic Chinese Jades, National Palace Museum, Taipei, 1995, cat. no. 18. See also a mask attributed to the Longshan culture, in the Shanghai Museum, illustrated in Shanghai Museum. Ancient Chinese Jade Gallery, Shanghai, 2000, p. 11 (bottom).
Sotheby's. Chinese Art, including Snuff Bottles and Jades from an Old Hong Kong Family Collection, Hong Kong, 28 november 2019