Lot 144. A quartz slit ring, jue, Neolithic period, South-East China, c. 3500 - 2500 B.C. Width 5.4 cm, 2⅛ in. Lot sold: 2,016 GBP (Estimate: 1,000 - 1,500 GBP). © 2022 Sotheby's.

the stone of a creamy white colour, carved as a ring with a large central hole drilled from both sides, with an animal straddling the outer edge, a small aperture drilled through the ring just below the animal's heathe stone of a milky-white colour, of flattened shape with a large hole to the centre, the surface smooth and the edges bevelled.

Provenance: Pin Chen Tang, Hong Kong, 18th May 1988.

Literature: Jessica Rawson, Chinese Jade from the Neolithic to the Qing, London, 1995, pl. 2:3.

Sotheby's. HOTUNG | 何東 The Personal Collection of the late Sir Joseph Hotung | Part II: Day. London, 8 December 2022