J.J. Lally & Co., Oriental Art / New York City, New York

Similarly carved openwork jade hooked cloud form pendants have been excavated at the large Hongshan temple and stone mound burial complex at Niuheliang in Liaoning province. Compare the cloud form jade pendants found at the Niuheliang site illustrated in Wenwu, 2008, No. 10, p. 26, col. pl. 25 and in a line drawing on p. 30, pl. 34, no. 3; in Wenwu, 1986, No. 8, in a line drawing on p. 12, pl. 18, no. 3; and by Gu (ed.), Zhongguo chutu yuqi quanji (Complete Collection of Jades Unearthed in China), Vol. 2, Inner Mongolia, Liaoning, Jilin, Heilongjiang, Beijing, 2005, p. 129. Another cloud form jade pendant excavated at the Hongshan culture site at Nasitai, Balinyouqi, Inner Mongolia, is illustrated by Gu (ed.), op. cit., p. 31.

Compare also the openwork Hongshan jade plaque of this type from the collection of Baron von Oertzen, Johannesburg, now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, illustrated by Sun in the Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, Fall 2010, “Recent Acquisitions, A Selection: 2008-2010,” p. 4.

A fragment of a hooked cloud form Hongshan jade plaque in the collection of the National Museum of History, Taiwan, is illustrated by Johnson and Chan in the catalogue of the special exhibition organized by the San Antonio Museum of Art, 5,000 Years of Chinese Jade, San Antonio, 2011, p. 36, no. 1; and two more Hongshan jade plaques of this type in the Kwan Collection are illustrated by Yang, Chinese Archaic Jades from the Kwan Collection, Hong Kong, 1994, nos. 3 and 4.

For a concise discussion of Hongshan jade pendants including a summary of archaeological evidence and suggestions for further reading see So, “A Hongshan Jade Pendant in the Freer Gallery of Art,” Orientations, May 1993, pp. 87-92.