Jade ladles fitted with gilt-bronze handles are extremely rare. The form of this ladle is likely to be a copy of the archaic bronze spoon known as shao or dou which was made for use with ritual wine vessels such as zun, you, gong or lei during the Zhou dynasty. Compare an archaic bronze spoon of similar form and decoration, excavated from the tomb of Marquis Yi of Zeng, currently in the Hubei Provincial Museum, illustrated in Zhongguo Qingtongqi Quanji 10: Dongzhou 4, Beijing, 1998, pl.174.|Although no jade ladle of the same decoration appears to have been published, similar elements including the animal mask and the tripart fluting design of the handle can be found related to two bronze garment hooks, Warring States period, in the Freer Gallery of Art, illustrated by T.Lawton, Chinese Art of the Warring States Period: Change and Continuity, 480–222 B.C., Washington D.C., 1982, pls.44 and 45.|For jade ladles with a similar form but without gilt-bronze fittings, see two related examples, both dated to the Han dynasty: a jade ladle with the design of an animal mask at the end of the handle, excavated at Luoyang, Henan Province, illustrated by Gu Fang, The Pictorial Handbook of Ancient Chinese Jades, Beijing, 2007, p.282; and another in the Palace Museum, Beijing, illustrated in Compendium of Collections in the Palace Museum: Jade 4, Beijing, 2011, p.186, no.241. |玉質青白，小部分受沁。勺呈心形，圓鼓腹，內壁光素，外壁雕雲雷紋，勺底有一可活動圓飾，上面以陰線刻卷雲紋。玉勺口沿及外壁嵌銅鎏金托，托與柄相連處飾雲紋，勺柄微弧，柄面呈三條平行凹槽，柄尾端飾獸面，構思精巧，無與倫比。|此件銅鎏金柄嵌玉勺工藝繁複，極為少見，應為禮器而非實用器。其原型或是仿東周時與青銅酒器同時使用的青銅斗或勺而製。湖北省隨州曾侯乙墓曾出土一件青銅斗，其形制及紋飾類似，可資參考，見《中國青銅全集10：東周4》，北京，1998年，圖版174。|美國華盛頓弗瑞爾美術館藏兩件戰國時期銅鎏金帶扣，其三條凹槽的器身以及獸面的設計與此玉勺勺柄極為相似，詳見T.Lawton，《Chinese Art of the Warring States Period: Change and Continuity, 480–222 B.C.》，華盛頓，1982年，圖44及45。|漢代墓葬中亦有形制相似的龍首玉勺出土，見河南洛陽市出土一件白玉龍勺，著錄於古方，《中國古玉器圖典》，北京，2007年，頁282。另見北京故宮博物院藏一例，著錄於《故宮博物院藏品大系:玉器編4:漢魏晉南北朝》，北京，2001年，頁186，編號241。