A Shijiahe type pale celadon jade 'human face' plaque, Early Western Zhou dynasty | 西周早期 石家河類型淺青黃玉人面形飾

The present lot belongs to an important group of monster-like human jades, often featured with building eyes, protruding teeth, and thick lips, which are closely related to the decoration of jades of a late Neolithic culture centred on the middle Yangtze River region in Shijiahe town, Hubei province. For example, several similar examples were excavated in 1955 and 1981 at Shijiahe culture sites, illustrated in Du Jinpeng, ‘Shijiahe yudiao shenxiang qianshuo [A brief discussion on the jade figures of deities from teh Shijiahe culture]', Jianghan kaogu / Jianghan Archaeology, Hubei, March 1993, pp. 51-59; Compare also a closely related jade ‘human face’ tubular bead, Shang dynasty, in the Shanghai Museum, illustrated in Yang Boda, Zhongguo yuqi quanji [Complete collection of Chinese jades], Hebei, 2005, no. 178, and another larger example receovered from the Shang period burial at Dayangzhou Chengjia site, Xingan county, Jiangxi province, illustrated in Xingan shangdai damu [The large Shang tomb in Xingan], 1997, p. 157, fig. 79, col. pl. 45.

此件人面形玉飾凸眼，厚唇，高束髮，其形製及紋飾與湖北石家河鎮中葉文化的玉器密切相關，如 1955 年及 1981 年在石家河文化遺址發現的類似的例子，見杜錦鵬，「石家河玉雕神像淺說」，刊於《江漢考古》，湖北，1993 年 3 月，頁 51-59；另比較上海博物館一件類似的玉人面形管飾，見楊伯達,《中國玉器全集》，河北，2005 年，編號 178。另見發掘自江西省新幹縣程家都鄉商代大墓的一件尺寸較大的人面形玉飾，見《新幹商代大墓》，1997 年，頁 157 頁，圖79，圖版 45。