A very rare yellowish-celadon jade mythical beast, Late Western Han dynasty | 西漢晚期　玉神獸

Tiffany Chen, Selected Works of Jade, Aurora Art Museum, Taipei, 2003, pl. 179.

Tsai Ching-Liang, Jades of Han Dynasty, Aurora Art Museum, Taipei, 2005, pl. 124.

Exquisitely carved with a palpable sense of latent energy, the present jade mythical beast is a quintessential example of the sculptural mastery achieved during the Han dynasty. The craftsman has ingeniously adapted the carving to the original cuboid shape of the jade boulder, utilising a flattened facial plane to minimise material loss while maximising the three-dimensional volume of the creature's taut, muscular body. The beast is depicted in a dynamic, crouching posture, as if ready to pounce, a visual tension further accentuated by the deeply concave carving of the haunches and the sweeping, overlapping curves of its feathered wings.

Winged mythical beasts, often referred to as bixie or literally translates to ‘ward off evil’, were adopted and adapted into the visual canon of the Han dynasty. Their enduring protective imagery and majesty led to their close association with funerary arts and the royal court. Monumental stone sculptures of these animals and their small jade counterparts were found at Han dynasty burial sites, believed to have served the function of protecting their owner and leading the way to paradise. While extant jade examples are now exceedingly rare, several important stone counterparts remain extant, guarding the ‘spirit roads’ to important Han tombs. Compare, for example, the iconic Eastern Han stone bixie now preserved in the Luoyang Museum, the largest of its kind preserved in China, unearthed from Youfang village, Luoyang, Henan province, in 1992.

Surviving comparable examples of Han jade bixie are extraordinarily rare. The present figure is very closely related in expression, carving style, and stone colour to a jade bixie excavated in 1972 from the Han dynasty architectural site northwest of Weiling in Xianyang city, Shaanxi province, now preserved in the Xianyang Museum, illustrated in Gu Fang, ed., The Complete Collection of Unearthed Jades in China, vol. 14: Shaanxi, Beijing, 2005, pl. 163.

Other famous examples, generally more upright in stance than the present lot, include one preserved in the Qing Court Collection and now in the Palace Museum, Taipei (accession no. gu yu-2789), illustrated in Five Thousand Years of Chinese Art Series: Chinese Jades of the Han Dynasty, Taipei, 1990, pl. 79; and another from the collection of Sir Joseph Hotung, acquired in our New York rooms, 2nd November 1979, lot 51, now preserved in the British Museum, London (accession no. 2022,3034.256). Illustrated in Jessica Rawson, Chinese Jade from the Neolithic to the Qing, London, 1995, pl. 26:7, Rawson describes the Hotung bixie's finely incised lines imitating fur and deeply carved sculptural curves as ‘typical of the early animal-shaped jades of the Han dynasty,’ a description perfectly fitting the present lot.

For another very closely related carving with a frontal snarling face, whiskers, and two horns, compare the famous winged waterpot excavated in 1984 from the Han tomb at Laohudun, Yangzhou, Jiangsu province, illustrated in Zhongguo yuqi quanji [The complete collection of Chinese jade], vol. 4, Shijiazhuang, 1993, pls 251 and 252.

出版

陳臻儀，《古玉選粹》，震旦藝術博物館，台北，2003年，圖版179

蔡慶良，《漢代玉器》，震旦藝術博物館，台北，2005年，圖版124

本件玉雕神獸氣韻生動，張力十足，充分展現了漢代玉雕匠人卓越的立體圓雕技藝。玉匠巧妙順應柱狀玉料之原形，將五官平展以減少玉材損耗，同時透過深刻的凹弧面與流暢的曲線，精準捕捉神獸蹲伏蓄勢、躍躍欲試的動態瞬間。其腿部肌肉飽滿有力，層層交疊的羽翅與前肢的鱗紋相呼應，極具視覺張力與雄渾氣魄。

神獸「辟邪」，意謂「趨避邪惡」，其圖像於漢代迅速盛行，象徵保衛守護，且形象威嚴尊貴，與朝廷皇室、喪葬儀典關係密切。漢陵周圍可見大型辟邪石雕，小型玉雕亦見於墓葬中，廣信作為守護墓主，助其往生淨土之用。現存玉雕雖罕，大型石雕可見守於漢陵神道遺址。比較洛陽博物館藏東漢石雕辟邪像，聞名世界，屬同類中最大尺寸，1992年出土於河南孟津縣。圓雕玉器可溯至商、周，然而漢代圓雕之寫實細膩，獨樹一格，顯與前朝傳統相異，漢例更為立體精緻，栩栩如生。明代學者高濂論漢玉：「漢人琢磨，妙在雙鈎，碾法婉轉流動，細入秋毫，更無疏密不勻，交接斷續。儼如遊絲白描，毫無滯跡。」本品細節刻劃入微，以細密短線精琢獸毛，足底更刻劃肉墊，正印證了漢代玉工此等出神入化之技。

存世的漢玉辟邪極罕。1972年陝西省咸陽市周陵鎮新庄村，漢元帝渭陵遺址出土一件玉辟邪，神獸表情、風格、石質皆與本品極為近似，面首姿態略為上挺，現藏咸陽博物館，錄於古方主編，《中國出土玉器全集：陝西》，卷14，北京，2005年，圖版163。

其他知名類例，獸首姿態多較本品高仰，如台北故宮博物院藏例（藏品編號：故玉2789），為清宮舊藏，刊於《中華五千年文物集刊：玉器篇（漢代）》，台北，1990年，圖版79。另一例為何鴻卿爵士珍藏，購於紐約蘇富比1979年11月2日，編號51，現存於倫敦大英博物館（藏品編號：2022,3034.256），載於傑西卡·羅森（Jessica Rawson），《Chinese Jade from the Neolithic to the Qing》，倫敦，1995年，圖版26：7，作者記述該品以極細刻線描寫毛羽，至於玉雕造形之立體轉折，則大膽運用深刻技法呈現對比，稱其為「漢代早期動物造形玉雕之典型風格」，此評語用於本品亦恰如其分。

另可參考1984年江蘇揚州邗江老虎墩東漢墓出土之辟邪形玉壺，獸面齜牙咧嘴，長鬚雙角皆與本品近類，出版於《中國玉器全集》，卷4，石家莊，1993年，圖版251、252。