J.J. Lally & Co., Oriental Art / New York City, New York
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19.
A LARGE CEREMONIAL JADE BLADE (GE)
Shang Dynasty, circa 13th Century B.C.
in the form of a ge dagger-axe with beveled edges and a well-defined medial ridge on both sides, curving gently down to the tapered point, which is set off-center, the blunt tang carved with pairs of squared teeth at the edge and with associated shallow grooves on both sides above a small circular aperture, the jade of attractive olive-brown color with natural greenish mottling, showing traces of cinnabar.
Length 12 3⁄8 inches (31.5 cm)
Finely carved jade blades of this distinctive form, following the design of a bronze weapon used by Shang foot soldiers, were important ceremonial emblems of status and power, sometimes presented as tribute offerings, not intended for use in warfare.
Compare the smaller jade blade of closely related form discovered in the tomb of the Shang military general and high priestess Fu Hao (d. circa 1200 B.C.), illustrated in Yinxu Fu Hao mu (Tomb of Lady Hao at Yinxu in Anyang), Beijing, 1980, pl. 108, no. 5, with description on p. 135. Another very similar Shang jade blade formerly in the Collection of A.W. Bahr is illustrated by Loehr, Ancient Chinese Jades from the Grenville L. Winthrop Collection in the Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University, Cambridge, 1975, p. 57, no. 35.
For a comprehensive discussion of ceremonial jade blades of the Bronze Age in China, see Rawson, Chinese Jade from the Neolithic to the Qing, London, 1995, pp. 192-193, where the author illustrates a similar jade ge in the British Museum on p. 193, fig. 3. See also Wilson, “Lithic Art in the Bronze Age: A Jade Dagger-Axe,” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art, January 1990, pp. 23-24, where the author illustrates jade blades of closely related form found in the Fu Hao tomb and describes the form as an example of the fully developed Anyang style.
商 玉戈 長 31.5 厘米
19.
A LARGE CEREMONIAL JADE BLADE (GE)
Shang Dynasty, circa 13th Century B.C.
Length 12 3⁄8 inches (31.5 cm)