ARCHAISTIC HUANG PENDANT WITH DECORATIONIN LOW RELIEF. Jade. China, Qing Dynasty, early 19th cent. WIDTH 10,9 CM, THICKNESS UP TO 6 MM
This very attractive antique huang comes from a famous collection and was acquired during the 1930s in Beijing. The width of this huang pendant corresponds to roughly one-third the size of a small disc in jade, suggesting that the pendant was probably obtained from a larger object. It is also possible, though difficult to determine, that the object from which the huang was derived was an ancient, plain disc, as the quality of the stone would suggest. The nephrite is in fact of a light green colour with diffused areas of a brownish tone determined by the inclusions in the stone, and it is similar to the type of jade used in the remote antiquity of the late Neolithic and the Bronze Age periods. Part of the pendant, especially the area near the wider border, is also altered. The alteration looks natural, of the type occurring on jades which have been buried for a long time, and not provoked artificially in later periods to make the object look older. From the collection of the famous palaeontologist Ralph von Königswald.
Expertized by Univ. Prov. Dr. Filippo Salviati