Ornament in the form of a dragon with raised irregular curls, one of a pair

• 1. (Jeffrey Smith per Matthew Clarke, August 2, 2022) Medium changed from Jade to Jade (nephrite).

  2. (Najiba Choudhury per Keith Wilson, March 29, 2023) Title changed from "Dragon" to "Ornament in the form of a dragon with raised irregular curls, one of a pair"; Date changed from "480-222 BCE" to "475-221 BCE"; added Chinese caption and Unpublished Research.

Draft catalogue entry (no. 346--347) for S2012.9.1255.1-2 for the catalogue of the Singer collection (1970--90); by Louisa Fitzgerald Huber
Pair of Dragons
Eastern Zhou 周 dynasty, Warring States period, 4th century BCE
Jade
Length: [346], 31.5 cm (12 7/16 in); [347], 32 cm (12 9/16 in)

These two dragons are outstanding for their impressive size. They are cut from the same stone and are alike  except for such small details such as the slightly different lengths of their heads. The heads, with blunt tipped crests,  are turned back toward their long, arched bodies. The dragons' muzzles, accented by a striated, ropelike band,  join a short spur jutting forward from the top of their bodies, while their tails, bending upward and ending in a pair  of volutes, are linked to another spur farther back. Beneath their bodies extends a longer, more graceful  appendage echoing the shape of the tail. At points along the lower edge are grooved spurs suggesting the  dragons' paws, while a third appendage rises from a volute farther to the right. The surfaces of both figures are filled with a dense pattern of raised curls arranged in intersecting straight rows. Each figure has a small  suspension hole near the top center. The originally translucent, dark green jade has become whitish in the case  of entry 347 (S2012.9.1255.2). A glossy red brown substance appears on both sides of entry 346 (S2012.9.1255.1), and adhering to one side are the  remnants of a finely woven cloth.

The Singer dragons, although much larger, are similar in style to several examples uncovered from Chu 楚  burials in southern Henan 河南 province assigned to the late Eastern Zhou 周 period. Among these are a pair of dragons  discovered at Getengshan 葛藤山, Gushi xian 固始縣, and a single figure from Changtaiguan 長台關, Xinyang 信陽. [1]   Dragon figures of this type dating from the third and second centuries BCE are generally somewhat  perfunctory in treatment by comparison to earlier counterparts. [2] On the later figures the area of raised curls is  reduced until it covers only the dragons' bodies, while their tails and other appendages are left plain apart from a  few lines parallel to their contours. The ropelike band around the dragons' muzzles is omitted and so too are their  eyes. Moreover, the "spurs" become increasingly slack in appearance--a feature incompatible with the spirited  character of the earlier, Warring States figures. 

[1] For Getengshan 葛藤山, see Zhan Hanqing 詹汉清, "Henan Gushi chutu Zhanguo yupei 河南固始出土战国玉佩," Wenwu 文物 1986. 4, p. 20, figs. 1--2; for Changtaiguan 長台關, see Henan sheng wenhuaju wenwu gongzuodui 河南省文化局文物工作队, "Woguo kaogushi shang de kongqian faxian-- Xinyang Changtaiguan faxian yizuo damu 我国考古史上的空前发现--信阳长台关发现一座大墓," Wenwu cankao ziliao 文物参考资料 9 (1957), p. 24, fig. 11.

[2] See, for example, one in the Singer collection [742]; Jan Fontein and Wu Tung, Unearthing China's Past (Boston: Museum of Fine Arts; distributed by New York Graphic Society, Greenwich, Connecticut, 1973), no. 34; and Thomas Lawton, Chinese Art of the Warring States Period: Change and Community, 480--222 B.C. (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution, 1982), no. 101.