Page 49 - Youngman jade Collection Hong Kong March 3 2019 Sotheby's

Kneeling figures of this type are perhaps among the rarest jade artefacts from the Shang
dynasty. Examples carved with related features have been found at the tomb of Lady Hao,
dated to around 1200 B.C., suggesting that this piece was made at around the same time.
While the identification and function of these kneeling figures is a matter of speculation,
their rarity suggests that ‘they are likely to have been extremely valuable and to have
offered Fu Hao some sort of power or access to power’ (Jessica Rawson, Mysteries of
Ancient China, London, 1996, p. 108).
Five kneeling figures from the tomb of Fu Hao are illustrated in Tomb of Lady Hao at Yinxu
in Anyang, Beijing, 1980, pls 129 and 130, together with two related jade heads, pl. 131, nos
1 and 2; another from the collection of Grenville L. Winthrop, in the Harvard Art Museums,
Cambridge, was included in the exhibition Ancient Chinese Jades, Fogg Art Museum,
Harvard University, Cambridge, 1975, cat. no. 121; and another from the collection of Jay
C. Leff, was sold in our New York rooms, 25th October 1975, lot 98. Compare also a seated
figure with knees raised, illustrated in Teng Shu P’ing, One Hundred Jades from the Lantien
Shanfang collection, Taipei, 1995, pl 37, together with a jade head, pl. 36.
Kneeling figures are also found on bronzes; see for example a bronze container supported
on four kneeling figures, recovered from the Western Zhou tomb of the Marquis of Jin,
Shanxi province, illustrated in Gems from Excavations of Cemetery or Marquis of Jin in
Shanxi Province, Shanghai, 2002, pl. 165.

THE ROBERT YOUNGMAN COLLECTION OF CHINESE JADE 47