image of catalogue item number 6
Catalogue No.6
China: Late Tang to Yuan Dynasty,
9th to 14th Century
Height: 2.1/4in [ 5.8cm ]
A rare translucent white jade attachment modelled as a "bird man", the figure with a coiled diadem, its arms drawn beneath its head, a small bird carved in relief above the well defined wings and tail feathers, all bound together with a silk tie, the stone with brown veining.

Reference: for a almost identical mottled green and russet jade carving dated Liao Dynasty see plate 90, p.103, vol.41, The Complete Collection of Treasures of the Palace Museum, Beijing; a greenish-white nephrite and a dark-brown flecked tan jade head-dress ornament attributed to the Tang Dynasty, the second in the Smithsonian Institution, Freer Gallery of Art, Washington D.C, plate 41a & b, Transactions of the Oriental Ceramic Society, London 1960-61, 1961-62, and also no.24, p.52, Jade of the East, Geoffrey Wills 1972; a further example from the Captain E.G. Spencer-Churchill, M.C, lot 103, Christies London, Northwick Park Collection, Fine Oriental Ceramics and Works of Art, May 24 1965; and another in The Peony Collection, dated Yuan Dynasty, plate 273, no.PE673, p.349, Jades from China, The Museum of East Asian Art, Bath, England, Angus Forsyth & Brian McElney 1994.