Three pale green jade 'musicians and dancer' belt plaques, Tang dynasty

Anthony Carter Ltd., London.

Compare a closely related jade plaque of a dancing foreigner, excavated from the Zhaoling Mausoleum, Shaanxi province, now housed in the Xi'an Institute of Archaeology, and illustrated in Gu Fang, The Complete Collection of Jades Unearthed in China, vol. 14 Shaanxi, Beijing, 2005, pl. 185. See another set of eleven jade belt plaques, carved with musicians and dancers of a similar style, illustrated in Angus Forsyth and Brian McElney, Jades from China, The Museum of East Asian Art, Bath, 1994, cat. no. 193. Jade belt plaques continued to be produced in the Liao dynasty, albeit of lesser carving and stone quality, as evidenced by the ones unearthed from the burial site of Shuiquan, Inner Mongolia, illustrated in ibid., vol. 2 Inner Mongolia, Liaoning, Jilin, Heilongjiang, pls 82-90.