Period:Shang dynasty Production date:15thC BC-10thC BC
Materials:jade
Technique:incised, bevelled,
Subjects:bird
Dimensions:Height: 3.40 centimetres Width: 5.30 centimetres
Description:
Bird of pale green slightly translucent jade with small areas of brown inclusions, some earth encrustation. The bird has large protruding eyes with prominent hooked involuted beak, folded wing feathers, long tail feathers and enclosed claws.
IMG
![图片[1]-figure BM-2022-3034.108-China Archive](https://chinaarchive.net/Shang dynasty/Jades/61_.jpg)
Comments:There is a slanted perforation through the beak. Late Shang. Height 37mm. See Loo 1950 and Ip Yee 1983. This bird stands in profile, with a round head, a prominent hooked involuted beak and an incised circular eye. From the rounded breast rises a slanting wing below which are a large claw and a bifurcated tail. The rear and longer part of the tail is undecorated and widens slightly to a sloping bevelled edge. This section, like those on dragon pendants, was perhaps a small cutting tool. The formula of a slanting wing and a down-turned tail is common on Shang period bird pendants. Bird forms were also frequently used as cutting tools. Those without plumes, as here, are characteristic of the Shang period; during the Western Zhou bird pendants almost invariably had small bottle horn-shaped plumes and long tails decorated with parallel incised lines, as seen on nos.12.29 [2014,AsiaLoan,1.186] and 12.30 [2014,AsiaLoan,1.188] (115 and 182). See Rawson 1995, p.225, cat.no.12.25.
Materials:jade
Technique:incised, bevelled,
Subjects:bird
Dimensions:Height: 3.40 centimetres Width: 5.30 centimetres
Description:
Bird of pale green slightly translucent jade with small areas of brown inclusions, some earth encrustation. The bird has large protruding eyes with prominent hooked involuted beak, folded wing feathers, long tail feathers and enclosed claws.
IMG
Comments:There is a slanted perforation through the beak. Late Shang. Height 37mm. See Loo 1950 and Ip Yee 1983. This bird stands in profile, with a round head, a prominent hooked involuted beak and an incised circular eye. From the rounded breast rises a slanting wing below which are a large claw and a bifurcated tail. The rear and longer part of the tail is undecorated and widens slightly to a sloping bevelled edge. This section, like those on dragon pendants, was perhaps a small cutting tool. The formula of a slanting wing and a down-turned tail is common on Shang period bird pendants. Bird forms were also frequently used as cutting tools. Those without plumes, as here, are characteristic of the Shang period; during the Western Zhou bird pendants almost invariably had small bottle horn-shaped plumes and long tails decorated with parallel incised lines, as seen on nos.12.29 [2014,AsiaLoan,1.186] and 12.30 [2014,AsiaLoan,1.188] (115 and 182). See Rawson 1995, p.225, cat.no.12.25.
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![[Qing Dynasty] British female painter—Elizabeth Keith, using woodblock prints to record China from the late Qing Dynasty to the early Republic of China—1915-China Archive](https://chinaarchive.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/image-191x300.png)
