A CELADON AND BROWN JADE BI DISK, WESTERN HAN DYNASTY
China, 2nd-1st century BC. Each side finely carved in low relief with a dense pattern of raised bosses neatly arranged in a hexagonal grid pattern, within narrow plain borders encircling the rim and enclosing the central aperture. The translucent stone of a pale yellowish-green color pale brown shadings, cloudy inclusions, and grayish-white calcification.


Provenance:
Collection of Harry Geoffrey Beasley (1881-1939) and thence by descent to his widow Irene Beasley. Collection of Alfred William Cowperthwaite (1890-1964), acquired from the above c. 1939 and thence by descent in the same family. Harry Geoffrey Beasley (1881-1939) was a British anthropologist and museum curator who developed an important ethnographic collection during the early 20th century that is now held in various British museums. With his wife Irene, Beasley set up the Cranmore Ethnographical Museum which eventually held more than 6,000 objects of ethnographical interest. The Beasleys collected objects from across Europe, buying from auction houses and local museums to expand the collection, which contained material from the Pacific, Asia, Africa, and Northwestern America. Beasley wrote numerous articles for anthropological journals and was considered an expert in his field. He died in 1939 and his collection was stored with the British Museum collections during the war, which was fortunate as the Cranmore Museum was destroyed by bombing. After the war substantial portions of the collection were passed to the British Museum, the Royal Museum in Edinburgh, the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, the University of Cambridge, the Pitt Rivers Museum, and the Merseyside County Museum. Other pieces, such as the present lot, were sold by his widow and, after her death in 1974, by their daughters. Alfred William Cowperthwaite (1890-1964) was a contributor to the Cranmore Museum and became good friends with Harry Beasley. Shortly after Harry Beasley’s death, he acquired several objects from Irene Beasley, including the present lot.

Condition:
Excellent condition, commensurate with age. Old wear, signs of weathering and erosion, minuscule nibbling, few minor nicks, tiny losses to edges which have smoothened over time.

Weight: 212.8 g
Dimensions: Diameter 15 cm


A Confucian text likely dating to the Western Han period
, the Zhou Li, or Rites of Zhou, states that the six ritual jades, or Liu Yu Liu Rue, comprise the bi, cong, gui, zhang, hu, and huang, among which, the bi disk and the cong tube were by far the most important and the longest lived. The bi, a circular disk with a circular perforation in the center, was said to symbolize the sun and to have been used in ceremonies paying homage to the sun. As a parallel, the cong - an implement square in section, open at both ends, and with a cylindrical passageway connecting the two ends - was believed to represent the earth and to have been used in ceremonies honoring the earth. Alas, the exact meaning and function of the bi and cong remain unknown, as those ritual implements originated in Neolithic times, more than 2,000 years before the Zhou Li was written. In all probability, that text thus merely states the conventional wisdom held at the time of its writing, which may or may not have anything to do with the implements’ original use and significance or their evolution over the millennia.


The earliest bi disks
, which date to the Neolithic period, which are undecorated and were crafted in a variety of colored hardstones, tend to be large, relatively thick, and sometimes slightly irregular in shape. Occasionally slightly off-center, the central perforation typically was worked from both sides, with the result that a low ridge often encircles the middle of the perforation, indicating the point where the tools met. By the Shang dynasty, bi disks, though still undecorated but with the perforation perfectly centered, were very regular in form, were usually crafted in sea-green or bluish-green nephrite and were generally thinner than earlier examples. In the late Eastern Zhou, most bi disks were finished with a subtly raised border around the periphery and another around the central perforation; in addition, the surface of the usually pale greenish-white stone, sometimes enlivened with a splash of brown, was typically ornamented with an array of small, spiral, or comma-shaped embellishments that are regularly spaced and rise in low relief and that are known as guwen or guliwen, meaning ‘grain patterns.’ (For a short essay on the emergence, development, and decline of the late Eastern Zhou relief embellishment, see Marcel Loehr, Ancient Chinese Jades from the Grenville L. Winthrop Collection in the Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, 1975, pp. 21-28.)


As demonstrated by this exquisite example
, the late Eastern Zhou preference for thin bi disks in white or pale greenish white jade marked with brown persisted into the Western Han, as did the taste for subtly raised borders and ornamented surfaces. In Western Han disks, however, the relief embellishments are polygonal, rather than round or comma-shaped, and they line up in very neat, regular rows and columns, in appearance often seemingly diagonally set, that well-defined order clearly reflecting the method with which the stone was worked. (Of course, the nearly arranged and regularly spaced spiral embellishments on late Eastern Zhou jades also appear in regular rows, but usually not in both rows and columns or set on diagonals.)


Literature comparison:

Compare a closely related bi disk with similar decoration, dated 475-100 BC, 13.7 cm diameter, in the National Museum of Asian Art, Smithsonian Institution, accession number S1987.594. Compare two closely related jade disks, also dated to the Western Han dynasty, 14 cm and 14.1 cm diameter, in the Grenville L. Winthrop Collection at the Harvard Art Museums, object numbers 1943.50.545 and 1943.50.550. A jade disk of related size and decorated with a similar hexagonal grid pattern was included in the National Palace Museum exhibition and illustrated in A Catalogue of National Palace Museum’s Special Exhibition of Circular Jade, Taipei, 2006, pl. 82.


Auction result comparison:

Type: Related
Auction: Christie’s New York, 19 March 2015, lot 592
Price: USD 106,250 or approx.
EUR 127,000
converted and adjusted for inflation at the time of writing
Description: A pale greenish-white and brown jade bi disk, Western Han dynasty, 206 BC-AD 8
Expert remark: Note the size (15.8 cm).


Auction result comparison:

Type: Closely related
Auction: Christie’s Hong Kong, 29 November 2022, lot 2711
Price: HKD 226,800 or approx.
EUR 27,500
converted and adjusted for inflation at the time of writing
Description: A carved jade disc, bi, Western Han dynasty 206 BC-AD 8
Expert remark: Note the size (14 cm).




西漢青玉穀紋璧

中國，西元前二至一世紀。圓形璧，體扁平，內、外邊緣處凸起，兩面紋飾相同，均飾顆粒狀穀紋。斜邊由相交線網格形成。玉璧呈斑駁青綠色，帶有黑色斑點和白色鈣化。


來源：
Harry Geoffrey Beasley (1881-1939)收藏，他逝世後由其遺孀Irene Beasley保存；Alfred William Cowperthwaite (1890-1964)，約於1939年購於上述收藏，之後在同一家族保存至今。Harry Geoffrey Beasley (1881-1939) 是一位英國人類學家和博物館館長，他在二十世紀初建立了一個重要的民族志收藏，現在收藏在英國的各個博物館中。Beasley和他的妻子Irene一起建立了Cranmore民族志博物館，該博物館最終收藏了 6,000 多件民族志方面的物品。Beasley 收集了來自歐洲各地的物品，從拍賣行和當地博物館購買以擴大收藏範圍，其中包含來自太平洋、亞洲、非洲和美國西北部的資料。Beasley為人類學期刊撰寫了大量文章，被公認爲是該領域的專家。他於 1939 年去世，他的藏品幸虧在戰爭期間被存放在大英博物館裏，而Cranmore博物館被轟炸摧毀。戰後，大部分藏品被轉移到大英博物館、愛丁堡皇家博物館、劍橋大學考古與人類學博物館、Pitt Rivers博物館和Merseyside County博物館。其他收藏，例如現在的拍品，由他的遺孀出售，在她 1974 年去世後，由他們的女兒出售。Alfred William Cowperthwaite (1890-1964) 曾是Cranmore 民族志博物館重要支持人，也曾是 Harry Beasley的好友。在Harry Beasley去世不久，他從Irene Beasley 處購買了一些收藏，包括此件拍品。

品相：
狀況極佳，有磨損、風化和侵蝕跡象、微小的磕損、一些小刻痕以及隨著時間的推移而變得光滑的邊緣的微小缺損。

重量：212.8 克
尺寸：直徑15 釐米


最早的璧
可以追溯到新石器時代，素面沒有任何裝飾，以各種彩石製成的。它們往往較大，相對較厚，有時形狀略微不規則。中央穿孔偶爾會稍微偏離中心。到了商代，璧雖然仍然素面，但孔眼完美居中，形狀非常規則，通常用海綠色或藍綠色軟玉製成，比之前更薄。東周晚期，大多數璧在外圍有微凸的邊緣，在中央穿孔周圍有另一個邊緣，通常白色玉料表面呈現淺綠色，有時會有一點點棕色，顯得更為生動，並裝飾有一系列雲紋或穀紋，有規律，呈淺浮雕狀。


文獻比較：

比較一件非常相近的公元前475至100年玉璧，直徑13.7 厘米，收藏於史密森學會國立亞洲藝術博物館，收藏編號 S1987.594。比較兩件非常相近的西漢時期玉璧，直徑14 厘米和14.1 厘米，收藏於哈佛藝術博物館Grenville L. Winthrop Collection，館藏編號1943.50.545和1943.50.550。一件相近尺寸的玉碟，飾有類似的六邊形網格圖案，展覽於國立故宮博物院，見《A Catalogue of National Palace Museum’s Special Exhibition of Circular Jade》，台北，2006年，圖82。


拍賣結果比較：

形制：相近
拍賣：紐約佳士得，2015年3月19日，lot 592
價格：USD 106,250（相當於今日
EUR 127,000
）
描述：西漢玉璧
專家評論：請注意尺寸(15.8 厘米) 。


拍賣結果比較：

形制：非常相近
拍賣：香港佳士得，2022年11月29日，lot 2711
價格：HKD 226,800（相當於今日
EUR 27,500
）
描述：西漢玉蒲紋璧
專家評論：請注意尺寸(14 厘米)。