An exceptional and rare jade kneeling figure, Han dynasty | 漢　跪坐玉人

Splendor Jade Collection of the Han Dynasty, Taipei, 2025, no. 42.

Few subjects in the history of jade are as elusive, spellbinding and emotionally resonant as renderings of the human form. Depicting an anonymous figure knelt in reverence – his head slightly turned, his shoulders gently drooping – the present figure without a doubt represents one of the finest surviving examples of early figural jade sculpture ever published.

Jade figural work, while extraordinarily rare, is not unprecedented. Usually modelled after bronze or ceramic prototypes, the early jade-carving centres of the Shang (ca. 16th–11th century BCE) and Zhou dynasties (ca. 1046–771 BCE) each produced rare examples of figural work in the round. Compare prototypical kneeling men carved in the round uncovered from the Shang capital of Yinxu, including three from the lavishly decorated tomb of Fu Hao (d. Ca. 1200 BCE) illustrated in Yinxu yuqi / The Jades from Yinxu, Beijing, 1981, pls 96–104; a kneeling figure of similar stone to the present but of the more bulbous Shang dynasty form, in the Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge (accession no. 1943.50.317), in Max Loehr and Louisa G. Fitzgerald Huber, Ancient Chinese Jades from the Grenville L. Winthrop Collection in the Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University, Cambridge, 1975, cat. no. 121; the famous Eastern Zhou figure of a kneeling man adorned with a patterned coat, also from the Winthrop Collection, ibid., cat. no. 408; and a Warring States period fitting excavated from the site of the Tongjia Factory, Luoyang, now preserved in the Luoyang Museum, in Gu Fang, ed., The Complete Collection of Jades Unearthed in China, vol. 5: Henan, Beijing, 2005, pl. 212. 

Although similarly important, finely carved and monumental, the figural carving of the Shang and Zhou dynasties almost invariably lacks the emotional intimacy of Han dynasty (206 BCE – 220 CE) figurework. With slender necks, deeply flowing robes, emotive yet simplistic facial features, and rich calcified stone colours, the jade figural designs of the Han dynasty – even at their most crude – possess an ineffable sense of reverence and calm unprecedented in the lapidary arts. 

As Brian McElney explains, at their most basic Han jade figures are exemplified by the so-called ‘Han Eight Cut’ design of a bearded man composed of a triangular head, body and arms; see Roger Keverne, ed. Jade, London, 1991, p. 123. Commonly attested on the market and uncovered at royal sites, these minimalist figures, though a far cry technically from the present, share remarkable similarities in their naive rendering and sweet stone colour. Beyond this humble design, other stylised figural carvings appear to have been contemporaneous, gradually growing more complex and apparently culminating in the sensitivity of the present figure. Compare a small number of excavated kneeling figures, mostly from Southern China, in the form of crude beads essentially derived from the ‘Eight Cut’ design but rendered more complex with the articulation of bent legs and rounded heads: two from Fenghuanggang, Guangzhou, illustrated in Gu Fang, op. cit., vol. 11, pls 115 and 116; and three excavated from the tomb of the King of Nanyue (175–124 BCE), now in the Museum of the Western Han Mausoleum of King of Nanyue, Guangzhou, ibid., pl. 117.

The culmination of this development are Han figures modelled truly in the round, of which the present perhaps represents the zenith. Compare an Eastern Han mourner in a grimace of closely related stone to the present in Roger Keverne, op. cit., fig. 28; and the famous bearded man with hands on a low table excavated from the tomb of Liu Sheng, Prince of Zhongshan (d. 113 BCE), in Mancheng, Hebei, illustrated in Gu Fang, op. cit., vol. 1: Beijing, Tianjin, Hebei, pl. 186, inscribed to the base with a blessing of longevity. Liu Sheng’s tomb – notable for its exceptional finds across every medium – features a handful of other naturalistic carvings in the round and appears to be the closest point of comparison to the present in terms of its exceptionally well-observed rendering of facial features and posture. Compare the extraordinary naturalism of a kneeling stone figure excavated from the Mancheng tomb in Wu Hung, ‘The Prince of Jade Revisited: The Material Symbolism of Jade as Observed in Mancheng Tombs’, Colloquies on Art & Archaeology in Asia, no. 18: Chinese Jades, London, 1998, p. 157, pl. 6.

For further examples of Han carvings of figures of various levels of complexity, compare a Western Han kneeling figure on a rectangular base in the Harvard Art Museum, Cambridge (accession no. 1943.50.331), drilled as a bead and lacking much of the present three dimensionality in Loehr and Huber, op. cit., cat. no. 547; a figure of a kneeling man with a headband and raised hand from the Chan-chi-hsüan Collection, less detailed than the present by virtue of its minute size, in the Collectors’ Exhibition of Archaic Chinese Jades, Palace Museum, Taipei, 1995, cat. no. 73; a standing robed lady from the Museum of East Asian Art, Bath, in Angus Forsyth and Brian McElney, Jades from China, Bath, 1994, pl. 155.

出版

《漢家琳琅》，台北，2025年，編號42

綜觀琢玉史上，人類形像可謂最無覊多貌、令人著迷，且深刻引起觀者共鳴之題材。玉人跪姿虔敬謙卑，仰面望天，肩膀深墜，簡潔而真切生動，無疑是存世所知最精彩的高古人形玉雕之一。

人形玉作數量極稀，但可前溯古例。商、周二朝皆見少數人形圓雕，造形多源自青銅或陶器。比較商都殷墟出土圓雕玉跪人雛本，如婦好（卒約西元前1200年）墓出土三例，紋飾富麗，刊於《殷墟玉器》，北京，1981年，圖版96-104；劍橋哈佛藝術博物館藏一例玉跪人（藏品編號：1943.50.317），玉質與本品相近，造形較圓潤，近商代風格，錄於羅樾與 Louisa G. Fitzgerald Huber，《Ancient Chinese Jades from the Grenville L. Winthrop Collection in the Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University》，劍橋，1975年，編號121；同錄 Winthrop 收藏東漢作例，玉跪人著華服，盛名遠播，編號408。並參考一洛陽出土戰國時期車馬件，現藏洛陽博物館，刊於古方編，《中國出土玉器全集：河南》，卷5，北京，2005年，圖版212。

商、周時期之玉人，論工藝、尺寸與重要性，皆各有春秋、無與倫比，但漢代玉人之雕琢更添一份細膩的情感描寫。脖頸纖細，長袍飄逸，面容線條簡約，卻十足表現出深沉的情緒，玉石經年累月之風化與鈣化，更顯得韻趣悠長，漢代玉人所展現的恭謙、靜謐與祥和之氣，可謂玉雕藝術之最。

麥雅理曾述，最簡化的漢代玉人以「漢八刀」翁仲為代表，運用簡單線條琢出三角形的頭部、身體與雙手；見 Roger Keverne 編，《Jade》，倫敦，1991年，頁123。此類袖珍尺寸玉人多見於皇家遺址與古物市場上，雖工藝程度、藝術性與本品有雲泥之別，二者風格皆屬線條簡潔、情感真摯，糖色玉質亦相近。如翁仲般簡化的造形之上，漢代玉人風格發展明確，越見繁複細膩，直至此像可謂巔峰。比較部份玉珠形跪人，多出土於中國南方，以「漢八刀」為礎，更增添跪姿腿部、圓形頭部等細節，如廣州鳳凰崗發掘二例，出版於古方，前述出處，卷11，圖版115、116。南越王墓出土三例，現藏廣州南越王博物院，同上，圖版117。

漢代人形玉雕工藝發展之巔，發展出完全立體逼真之圓雕，即如現尊跪坐玉人。比較一東漢例，玉人面容似因哀傷而扭曲，玉質與本品類同，錄於Roger Keverne，前述出處，圖28；河北滿城中山王劉勝（卒西元前113年）墓出土玉人，鬚眉茂密，隱几跪坐，雙手置於几上，底部銘文祝意延年，載於古方，前述出處，卷1，圖版186。中山王墓出土文物包羅萬象，其中數件圓雕，自然逼真，面容、姿態之描寫，纖細動人，與此像甚類。參考滿城墓葬遺址出土的一件玉跪人，刊載於巫鴻，〈The Prince of Jade Revisited: The Material Symbolism of Jade as Observed in Mancheng Tombs〉，《Colloquies on Art & Archaeology in Asia：Chinese Jades》，編號18，倫敦，1998年，頁157，圖版6。

並參考其他漢代人形玉雕，繁簡各異，如劍橋哈佛藝術博物館藏一例，立於方基上（藏品編號：1943.50.331），中心鑽孔作珠形，不若本品立體，錄於羅樾與 Louisa G. Fitzgerald Huber，前述出處，編號547；暫集軒收藏一玉人，較小且簡，出版於《羣玉別藏》，故宮博物院，台北，1995年，編號73。另見巴斯東亞藝術博物館藏一例玉雕著袍仕女，出版於霍璽與麥雅理，《Jades from China》，巴斯，1994年，圖版155。