A RARE GREEN AND RUSSET JADE CONG

Estimated Value:

2.000 € - 3.000 €

Schätzpreis:

3.000 €

Description:

China, Neolithic Period/Shang Dynasty
9,4 x 9,2 x 5,7 cm
The thick-walled cong carved with rectangular, flat sides, projecting corners and a shallow collar at each end, the beige-green stone with areas of russet and buff opaque inclusions.
Important Austrian private collection, acquired in the 1980s from the London art trade
Publ. Zeileis, "Selected Chinese jades from seven millennia," 1994, no. 122, p. 150
The cong is one of the principal jade types of the Neolithic period, first appearing during the early Neolithic period, particularly the Liangzhu culture (c. 3000 - 2000 BC), whose people appear to have developed both the cong and bi disc.1 As with the bi disc, the function of the cong tube is not entirely clear. One interpretation is that the cong symbolised the earth, while the bi disc symbolised heaven. Undecorated, short square congs with low rounded collars on both ends represent archaic shapes based on Neolithic Liangzhu cong tubes that were revived during the Shang and Western Zhou dynasties. A closely comparable undecorated jade cong of similar dark-green celadon colour and of similar proportions, dated to the Qijia culture (c. 2000 - 1600 BC) of the late Neolithic period, is in the collection of the Palace Museum, Beijing, see Compendium of Collection in the Palace Museum, Jade- I, Neolithic Age, The Forbidden City Publishing House, Beijing, 2010, no. 201, p. 206. See also related examples illustrated in Art in Quest of Heaven and Truth - Chinese Jades through the Ages, Taipei, 2011, pl.4-4-13
Partly old chips

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