• THE LIANGZHU JADE SCEPTRE •
The
LIANGZHU JADE SCEPTRE
A treasure from
China's history . . .
The
LIANGZHU
JADE
SCEPTRE
A UNIQUE TREASURE
You are offered the opportunity to acquire an unrivalled masterpiece from the dawn of Chinese civilisation.
As the purchaser of this ancient treasure, you will have the honour of owning a work of supreme historical and cultural importance.
You will assume a proud role as the custodian of an extraordinary piece of China's archaic heritage – a unique example of a Neolithic ritual jade sceptre from the Liangzhu culture, which flourished from 3400 to 2250 BC.
Never before seen in public, and still in private hands, The Liangzhu Jade Sceptre is imbued with a mysterious power all its own.
It is now available for sale to a serious collector. Key information for the intending purchaser may be found by clicking here:
Please click on the image for a complete 360° view. This will open in a new window.
. . . seeks a buyer
of rare distinction.
This truly remarkable object bears powerful testimony to the richness of China’s ancient civilisation.
It was produced by an advanced society that occupied much of the Yangtze delta some 5000 years ago.
The Liangzhu culture operated from about 3400 to 2250 BC and was based chiefly on growing rice. Its capital was a city outside what is now Hangzhou that covered 290 hectares and was the largest of its time, surrounded by massive clay walls and a moat. Besides giant raised platforms supporting palaces and burial grounds for the elite, it contained tombs, altars, homes, workshops, river docks and lesser burial grounds, plus impressive hydraulic and irrigation works.
The people of Liangzhu used stone ploughs, hoes, scythes, adzes and other tools. Like other Neolithic local societies, they also produced works of magnificent craftsmanship which have become part of China’s artistic heritage and are greatly valued today.
The graves of Liangzhu have yielded a treasure hoard of pottery, lacquer, serpentine and especially jade. They include hundreds of ritual jade discs (bi) and hollow square tubes (cong) – in both cases the earliest found – as well as personal ornaments, beads, animal and semi-animal figures, ceremonial axe heads (yue) and knives (gui).
Archaeologists have also found a very small number of what are known as ritual sceptres. The piece that is now offered for sale, The Liangzhu Jade Sceptre, is by far the largest, most elaborate and most significant of these.
An impression of the garb worn by a leader of the Liangzhu culture
Two bi discs from the Liangzhu culture
The historical value of The Liangzhu Jade Sceptre is incalculable, yet the immense passage of time means that its true nature and purpose may never be fully understood.
Although some of the many remarkable and alluring items buried in the Liangzhu tombs appear to be ornamental, and some may have had ritual or funerary importance, others were no doubt accoutrements and insignia of regal and military power, and these include the sceptres.
These enigmatic and extremely rare objects of various shapes are thought to have been wielded as signs of rank and authority, whether religious, political, magical or a mixture of these. They are carved, usually with some variant of the spirit motif that appears on The Liangzhu Jade Sceptre, and they have a hole or socket by which they were attached to a holder. Some are of ivory or bone, and others, like this one, of jade.
Other sceptres of similar form were produced in later times, but this is believed to be the earliest known. It is also extremely unusual and perhaps unique in being exceptionally heavy, which may reflect its exceptional importance or the high status of the person wielding it.
It is highly probable that a Liangzhu sceptre was created to generate power in its own right, or perhaps to store energy – to be what Dr Chang Kwang-Chih, formerly of Harvard University, calls a ‘magic instrument’.
The Liangzhu Jade Sceptre is carved from a single block of dark jade and measures 325mm long by 117mm in diameter at its widest. It is evidently shaped to fit into a holder, and a hole of varying size and direction is drilled through it 25mm from the base.
The upper part is covered with an overlay of scrolling silver-gilt openwork showing a three-toed dragon and another creature, possibly a qilin. This dates from a later period, perhaps the Tang Dynasty (618-907 AD), and may have been added as a mark of respect for the sceptre. It includes some small breaks.
The sole original decoration on the sceptre is a pair of startling shamanistic or zoomorphic motifs, shenren shoumian, typical of Liangzhu work and carved in diametrically opposed positions.
The carving on The Liangzhu Jade Sceptre is a splendid example of what the leading scholar Elizabeth Childs-Johnson calls ‘the most prominent and common image decorating ritual implements, weaponry, and body ornaments’ in the Liangzhu culture.
According to Li Boqian of Peking University, it depicts ‘an infinitely resourceful half-deity that in his practice of magic rides a mythical animal able to go up to heaven and down to the earth’.
The spirit-power image from the famous Royal Cong is strikingly similar to the images on The Liangzhu Jade Sceptre.
Dr Childs-Johnson continues: ‘[It] has been variously labelled a godhead, a spirit person (shenren), a humanised deity, or semi-human spirit power. . . . [On the celebrated so-called Royal Cong from Fanshan, a] human with bracket-shaped feathered headdress and displayed arms ending in fingers literally rides an abstract animal-like spirit with large ovoid-shaped eyes and displayed body with limbs ending in claws. This superimposition of man on animal is an outright symbol of . . . man with animal spirit power.
‘An abstract pair of wings projects from the human’s upper arm. Clothing is covered with abstract cosmic cloud scrolls, the same ones filling the eyes and limbs of the animal. Animalistic attributes comprise large circular eye sockets with pupils. . . . A nasal ridge rises above a jaw and mouth with paired upward- and downward-turning fangs. Limbs, exaggeratedly long, are similar to those of the human, with a pair of small feather extensions, but are smaller and contracted and end in claws, suggesting a feline or bird of prey.’
Prof. Li adds that the ‘half-deity’ in a feather crown is a wizard, ‘while the mythical animal with round eyes, protruding teeth and bird’s feet [is] an imaginary creature with man-like spiritual nature’.
Concludes Chang Kwang-Chih, formerly John E. Hudson Professor of Archaeology at Harvard University: ‘The wizard’s operation of communicating with Heaven and Earth was under animals’ help, so it is certainly not accidental that the magic instruments as tools of communicating with gods bear incised animal figures.’
John Dowell Davies AO
The Liangzhu Jade Sceptre is held in Tasmania, Australia. It was owned by the noted Australian art and antique collector John Dowell Davies AO, who died in 2004, and has passed to his granddaughter through the estate of his daughter Pamela Jane Davies.
Mr Davies travelled widely and collected antiquities, jades and Chinese ceramics along with Australian paintings, prints and many other artworks. It is likely that he acquired this piece in Asia. Much of his collection was bequeathed to his family.
He was a successful stockbroker in Melbourne and a founding council member of the National Gallery of Australia in Canberra. He was appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia in 1985 for his service to business and the arts.
MATERIAL AND DATE
The ritual goods of the Liangzhu culture were almost all made from jade (nephrite), but some were of serpentine, a very similar mineral.
The extreme hardness and weight of The Liangzhu Jade Sceptre, and the lack of flakiness around the hole through it, indicate that it is carved from nephrite.
Indications of its Neolithic date are the irregularity of its shape – it is not perfectly cylindrical at any point and so was not turned on a lathe – and especially the fact that the hole changes direction, having been drilled from both sides at slightly different angles. The hole exhibits helical scoring from the technique and abrasive used.
Evidence of antiquity in the stone itself includes:
● Differential weathering: the differing deterioration of the various parts of the carved surface due to humidity, heat and chemicals in the air over a long period.
● Diffusive markings, caused by the gradual penetration of exterior chemicals under the impact of heat and pressure underground. This produces different levels of condensed colours which should not be mistaken for the markings in raw jade.
● Cleaving veins, caused by the interaction of heat and pressure, and different from cracks caused by percussion.
CERTIFICATE OF AUTHENTICITY
Please click on the image for an enlarged view.
PRICE, TERMS AND CONTACT
Offers are invited and should be emailed to us by means of the contact form.
We will be delighted to answer any questions: please use the same form, and we will reply within 24 hours.
We will notify you swiftly by email whether your offer has secured The Liangzhu Jade Sceptre.
If so, we will advise you as soon as possible of the total price including shipping and taxes, which will depend on the destination. You will then be asked to pay clear funds into a trust account maintained by McGrath & Co. Lawyers, 5 Cattley St, Burnie, Tasmania 7320, Australia (tel. +61 3 6431 1422, fax +61 3 6431 7499, DX70205).
Packing, shipping and delivery will be undertaken by IAS Fine Art Logistics and their local agents. Under a binding escrow agreement, of which you will receive a copy, McGrath & Co. Lawyers will not release the funds to us until IAS have confirmed in writing to them that The Liangzhu Jade Sceptre has been delivered to you, as purchaser, at your nominated address.
Alternatively, we are happy to accept Bitcoin payment in an escrow transaction which we will arrange through Escaroo.
Every effort has been made to verify the authenticity of this piece. Despite the practical difficulty of obtaining scholarly appraisal, particularly in this era of COVID and in the face of the particular restrictions it has brought, we have no reason whatever to doubt the genuine nature of this unique article as a stunning product of the Liangzhu culture and its craftsmen.