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Lot 241
A YELLOW-BROWN JADE PENDANT OF A PRAYING MANTIS (?)
Estimated Value:
800 € - 1.200 €
Hammer Price:
Description:
China, probably earlier Zhou dynastyL. 5,8 cm
Naturalistic depiction of the always somewhat sinister animal, around which many legends have grown up because of its bravery and tactical skill. Its main food is cicadas, symbols of rebirth. What ritual significance this had is difficult to say.
Important Austrian private collection, acquired in the 1980s
Publ. Zeileis, "Selected Jades from Seven Millennia," 1994, no. 149, p. 181
Cf. Chinese Jades in the Avery Brundage Collection, San Francisco 1977, pl.IX
Very minor traces of age
