Page 25 - 2020 September 21 Elegant Embellishment the RenLu Colelction, Bonham NYC

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A PAIR OF GOLD ‘FIGURAL’ EARRING PENDANTS, ERZHUI
Ming dynasty
Each rendered as a female figure in layered leaf-form robes standing
on a flower pedestal and carrying a basket on her back containing a
lingzhi branch, identified either as the Deity of Medicine yaoshen or as
Maonu, her rounded face framed by thick hair and surmounted with a
large lotus blossom with a wire loop in the center for attaching a pin.
2in (5.1cm) high overall (2).

US$8,000 - 10,000

明 人物金耳墜一對

A virtually identical pair of earrings was recovered from a Ming (Yongle
period) burial in the Xu Da Family cemetery near Nanjing in the 1970s.
The figure decorating the earrings is identified as the Yaoshen (Deity of
Medicine) in Jin yu Yu (金與玉，2004). The earrings are also published
and illustrated in Zhongguo Gudai Jinyin Shoushi (Beijing: Gugong,
2014), vol. 2, p. 623, pl. 6.24. Yang Zhishui, author of the book, states
that the depicted figure is in fact called Yujiang, known as Maonu
(hairy girl) – an immortal known after the collapse of the Qin dynasty.
The information related to Maonu is recorded in the Han dynasty book
Liexian Zhuan (Biographies of Immortals).

Compare also another example of an almost identical figure appearing
on a hairpin, excavated from a Ming tomb in Qizhou County, Hubei
Province, illustrated in The Golden China, Gold Artifacts of Ancient
China, (Nanjing: Nanjing Museum, 2013), pp. 342-343.

It is believed that there were inlaid beads on each of the flower petals
above the figure’s head, now missing.

潤廬品金 ELEGANT EMBELLISHMENTS | 23