An exceedingly rare and important white and russet jade carving of a bear


Western Han DynastyPowerfully carved in movement, with the right foreleg extended forward, the head slightly tilted to the left, the round eyes gazing forward flanking the nose with small indentations for nostrils, the wide head with incised lines along the edges delineating the fur, the forehead with a central line below the raised ears, the rounded body and spine extending to the short tail with very fine incised lines on either side, the haunches well rounded and extending to the muscular legs and clawed feet, with one tucked underneath, the paws marked by circles, the fur along the belly denoted by two crescent incised lines, the stone of even white tone with russet along the nose and further minor inclusions, box. 5.7cm (2 5/16in) long (2).
|西漢 白玉雕熊Provenance:Piasa, Paris, 3 - 4 April 2006, lot 170Durwin Tang Collection來源：Piasa，巴黎，2006年4月3-4日，拍品170鄧德雍收藏This exceptional white jade sculpture of a bear represents the powerful beast caught in the midst of movement, with its left foreleg ready to pace forward ahead of the already extended right foreleg. Its head is set forward and slightly tilted to the left gazing intensely ready to challenge any opponent. This potent and powerful posture is characteristic to natural representations in jade and in bronze of Han dynasty bears, tigers and other wild beasts. However, jade sculptures in comparison to other carvings such as chimeras, are very rare.A similar white jade carving of a bear, Western Han dynasty, with its head raised, was excavated from Weicheng District, Xianyang City, Shaanxi Province, in the Xianyang Museum, is illustrated by Gu Fang, The Pictorial Handbook of Ancient Chinese Jades, Beijing, 2007, p.271. See also a related large jade weight in the form of a bear, Western Han dynasty, excavated at Beidongshan, in Xuzhou Museum, Jiangsu Province, illustrated by J.C.S.Lin, ed., The Search for Immortality: Tomb Treasures of Han China, Cambridge, 2012, no.37, where the author notes that keeping of exotic wild animals in captivity was popular among the Kings of Chu.Whilst Han dynasty gilt-bronze models of bears were used either as supports - or as mat-weights - such as the Robert Hatfield Ellsworth one which was sold at Christie's New York, 17 March 2015, lot 1 - jade carving as the present lot, considered particularly precious, would have most likely been on display for their spiritual protective prowess. The bear has been a popular totemic emblem in China since ancient times. China's foundation myths hold that the legendary Yellow emperor, or Huang Di, early on lived with his tribe in the northwest, presumably in modern Shanxi Province, but then later migrated to Zhuolu, in present-day Hebei Province, where he became a farmer and tamed six different types of ferocious beasts, including the bear, or xiong, with which the Yellow emperor ever since has been linked. According to legend, Gun — said to have been the great-grandson of the Yellow emperor and the father of Yu the Great, or Da Yu — stole a special soil with which he planned to build dikes in an attempt to control the Yellow River's constantly recurring and very devastating floods; he failed in his mission, however, and, as punishment for his theft, was killed by Zhurong, the God of Fire. Gun's corpse turned into a yellow bear, or huangxiong, and jumped into a pool; a while later, a golden bear, alternatively said to be a golden dragon, emerged from the corpse's stomach and ascended into heaven, where the Yellow emperor instructed it to complete his father's work in taming the Yellow River's waters. That bear turned out to be Da Yu, who according to popular belief heroically controlled the floods and became the mythological forefather of China's Xia dynasty. Therefore, the bear has been prominently associated with legendary rulers and Chinese national foundation myths since the earliest times. From the Han dynasty (206 BC–AD 220) onwards, and probably even much earlier, bears have also been linked with military prowess, shamanism, and Immortality. As a corollary, it might be noted that the words for 'bear' and 'virility' are exact homonyms, pronounced xiong.Bears were depicted in Chinese art at least as early as the Shang dynasty, as demonstrated by three jade bears excavated in 1976 from the tomb of Lady Fu Hao (died circa 1200 BC), Anyang, Henan Province; by two jade bears in the Grenville L. Winthrop Collection at the Harvard Art Museums (1943.50.308 and 1943.50.509); and by a rare marble sculpture seemingly depicting a kneeling human figure with a bear's head—sometimes said to be a feline head, that archaeologists from the Academia Sinica recovered from Xibeigang Tomb M1001 at Anyang in 1928, illustrated in the National Palace Museum, Taipei, exhibition catalogue, King Wu Ding and Lady Hao: Art and Culture of the Late Shang Dynasty, Taipei, 19 October 2012 - 19 February 2013, pp.230-231, no.RO1757. Perhaps the most famous Shang-dynasty work representing a bear, alternatively said to be a tiger, however, is the bronze ritual you wine vessel in the Sumitomo Collection, Kyoto, which was cast in the form of a beast either embracing or consuming a human figure. See R.Bagley, Shang Ritual Bronze Vessels in the Arthur M. Sackler Collections, Washington D.C., 1987 p.123, fig.197. In the Western (206 BC–AD 8) and Eastern Han (AD 25–220) periods, both bronze and ceramic vessels often were outfitted with legs in the shape of bears; such vessel legs, generally in sets of three, portray the bears resting on their haunches and supporting the perimeter of the vessel base on their shoulders. Such Bronze Age representations typically present bears in formal, bilaterally symmetrical poses with the animals kneeling or resting on their haunches.The depiction of jade bears continued after the Han dynasty; however, later carvings would seem to lack the stronger earlier characteristics of movement, as exemplified in a white jade recumbent bear, Tang dynasty, illustrated by Bai Wenyuan ed., Jade Wares Collected by Tianjin Museum, Beijing, 2012, no.117.白玉質，略帶黃皮，圓雕成熊形，斜刀成其細部。熊後踞前伏，頭微側，似凝力將發，作前撲之態。此件用刀極為內斂，圓潤藏鋒，卻又飽含生韻。漢代常見肖生飾件，金石玉器、熊虎豺豹之屬不一而足，而玉雕肖生作品中，常見辟邪等異獸，熊形玉雕頗為罕見。漢代熊的形象常見於家具四足，作背負狀，亦有作鎮紙之例。 漢代肖熊飾件多為青銅鎏金質地，且作為附屬飾件，而本拍品並無穿孔鑲嵌痕跡，或為獨立飾件。參考安思遠舊藏一件漢代鎏金熊，2015年3月17日售於佳士得紐約，拍品編號1。陕西咸陽渭城區出土一件漢代白玉熊，頗為類似而頭微昂，可作參考，見古方，《中國古玉器圖典》，北京，2007年，頁271。另見江蘇省徐州市北洞山楚王墓主墓室出土的一件西漢玉熊，著錄於J.C.S.Lin編，《The Search for Immortality: Tomb Treasures of Han China》，劍橋，2012年，編號37，作者認為飼養如熊、豹等猛獸或受楚國王室推崇。熊在中國古代典籍中出現的時間和中國文字一樣久遠。黃帝故國號即為「有熊」，《史記·五帝本紀》載：「軒轅乃修德振兵，治五氣，藝五種，撫萬民，度四方，教熊羆貔貅貙虎，以與炎帝戰於阪泉之野。三戰然後得其志。」或可見遠至上古，中原居民便已馴化熊羆。黃帝之曾孫鯀曾因治水不利而被處死，旋化為黃熊，見《山海經·海內經》：「鯀竊帝之息壤以堙洪水，不待帝命，帝令祝融殺於羽郊」《國語·晉語八》又載：「昔者鯀違帝命，殛之於羽山，化為黃能（熊）以入於羽淵。」祝融刀剖鯀屍而大禹出，其後洪水乃治。至於漢代，熊則有警示君王之意，《漢書·五行志中之上》載：「昭帝時，昌邑王賀聞人聲曰『熊』，視而見大熊。左右莫見，以問郎中令龔遂，遂曰：『熊，山野之獸，而來入宮室，王獨見之，此天戒大王，恐宮室將空，危亡象也。』賀不改寤，後卒失國。」昌邑王賀即海昏侯劉賀，在位二十七天為霍光所廢。肖熊藝術品最早有商代遺物可作例證，1976年河南安陽婦好墓（約公元前1200年歿）出土三件玉熊，或為較為明確年代作品中之最早實例，其中兩件為温索浦（Grenville L. Winthrop）舊藏，現藏哈佛藝術博物館，館藏編號1943.50.308及1943.50.509。1928年安陽西北崗M1001號墓出土一件大理石質熊首人物跪像，一說虎首，可參考之，現藏中央研究院史語所，見國立故宮博物院，《商王武丁與后婦好一殷商盛世文化藝術特展》，2012年，頁230至231，編號RO1757。日本京都泉屋博古館藏一件商代虎噬人青銅提梁卣，有學者認為或為熊噬人，參見R.Bagley著，《Shang Ritual Bronze Vessels in the Arthur M. Sackler Collections》，華盛頓特區，1987年，頁123，圖197。肖熊藝術品雖在後期亦有出現，但對其張力及動感的表現均無法與漢代玉雕動物相比，如天津博物館藏一件唐代玉熊，見白文源編，《天津博物藏玉》，北京，2012年，編號117。