Lot 117. A white jade belt plaque, Tang dynasty or later. Width 1 7/8  in., 4.7 cm. Estimate 6,000 — 8,000 USD. Lot sold 137,500 USD. © Sotheby's.

carved in relief to one side with a musician, possibly of Central Asian origin, seated on an oval mat playing a pipa, the figure enclosed within an undulating frame, the other side possibly later-carved with a sinewy coiled dragon encircling a floret amidst clouds extending over the top edge of the plaque, pierced for suspension, the stone of a pure white color.

Provenance: Collection of Stephen Junkunc III (d. 1978). 

Note: Plaques such as the present example were produced from the early Tang dynasty in sets to adorn belts, with each plaque variously carved with musicians playing different instruments or as servers bearing tribute. Many of the figures are dressed in Central Asian style, in keeping with the fashion seen on foreigners in the Tang dynasty capital. A belt set comprised of sixteen similarly carved white jade plaques was excavated at Heijiacun, Xi'an, Shaanxi province in 1970 and was included in the exhibition Gilded Dragons, Buried Treasures from China's Golden Ages, The British Museum, London, 1999, cat. no. 65. A single example, carved with a musician playing a pipe, is illustrated in Jessica Rawson, Chinese Jade from the Neolithic to the Qing, London, 1995, pl. 25:2. 

Sotheby's. Junkunc: Arts of Ancient China, New York, 19 march 2019, 10:00 AM