A WHITE JADE ‘DRAGON’ ORNAMENT, WESTERN HANJade. China, Early Western Han dynasty, Xuzhou type, 2nd century BCPublished: Filippo Salviati, 4000 Years of Chinese Archaic Jades, 2017, pp. 264-265, no. 278.The present jade is shaped from white jade as an arched dragon with a feline-looking head and a large thick body that ends in a pointed tip. The mouth, open to show the fangs, is topped by whiskers filled with striations, also used to mark the tufts of hair behind the head; the snout is upturned and terminates in a curl, while the slanting eye is topped by a thick line standing for the eyebrow. Below each pendant there is a further, dragon carved in openwork: the head is turned towards the back and the sinuous body is enriched with volutes that look like a stylized bird head in profile.The form of this jade matches that of similar pendants discovered in the Western Han tombs at Xuzhou and it is firstly attested amongst the 6th-5th century BC jades discovered at Xiasi, Xichuan, Henan province.LENGTH 13.9 cmProvenance: Private Collection of Irene and Wolfgang Zacke (1942-2022).