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A LARGE DARK OLIVE-BROWN JADE BLADE, DAO
- LATE NEOLITHIC PERIOD, CIRCA 2000 BC

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A LARGE DARK OLIVE-BROWN JADE BLADE, DAO
LATE NEOLITHIC PERIOD, CIRCA 2000 BC
Estimate
(Set Currency)
    $10,000 - $15,000

Sale Information

Sale 2405
Fine Chinese Ceramics and Works of Art Including Property from the Arthur M. Sackler Collections
25 March 2010
New York, Rockefeller Plaza





Lot Description

A LARGE DARK OLIVE-BROWN JADE BLADE, DAO
LATE NEOLITHIC PERIOD, CIRCA 2000 BC
Probably Longshan Culture, the broad blade of modified trapezoidal shape, very thinly carved and tapering slightly towards both long edges, one of which has a slightly curved bevel on one side and a partial beveled edge on the reverse, drilled from one side with three holes, the stone of mottled dark olive-brown color
16½ in. (42 cm.) long

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Provenance

A.W. Bahr Collection, Weybridge, 1963.

Lot Notes

Blades of this large trapezoidal shape, dao, usually have three, or sometimes four or five holes drilled near one edge opposite the beveled, cutting edge. The holes were for lashing the blade to a wood handle. The present blade appears to be cut down from a longer blade, probably broken at one time, and therefore the third hole is now missing. Longer jade blades of this type excavated at a Longshan Culture site at Shimao, Shenmuxian, Shaanxi province, are illustrated in Kaogu, 1977:3, p. 156, figs. 1 and 2. Fig. 1 shows a blade with three holes along one edge, as well as a fourth hole placed in a position similar to that on the present blade. Fig. 2 shows a blade with five holes. In line drawings on p. 155, one can see that both had been broken. A long blade of similar type (38.7 cm.) in the Winthrop Collection is illustrated by M. Loehr in Ancient Chinese Jades, Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University, p. 169, no. 217; and another from the Arthur M. Sackler Collections was sold in these rooms, 1 December 1994, lot 76.

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