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A VERY RARE COMPLETE SET OF FOUR JADE SWORD FITTINGS
WESTERN HAN DYNASTY (206 BC-AD 8)
This very rare set comprises four jade fittings used to adorn a metal sword, including a sword pommel, a sword slide, a chape and a sword guard.
Sword slide: 4 3/4 in. (12 cm.) long, box
Provenance
Jinhuatang Collection, acquired in Hong Kong in 1999
Post lot text
SWORD FITTINGS
Sword fittings are jade fittings made for swords used by high ranking nobilities. From excavated materials it appears that as early as the Western Zhou period jade was used on swords, but only as sword handles. In late Warring States period, the set of jade pommel, guard, slide and chape developed as adornment for swords, and became widely used in the Han Dynasty.
As lapidary in the Han Dynasty was highly developed, the sword fittings on the basis of Warring States examples became more intricate in design, more inventive in decoration and more refined in their finishing, making them visually more dynamic. Apart from the animal masks, cloud scrolls and grain patterns, the use of high relief pierced design depicting chilong dragons is the most distinctive feature of this period.
The four sword fittings of Han Dynasty have the following characteristics:
1. Sword pommels: mostly in disc shape, the underside either plain or decorated with incised silkworm pattern or cloud scrolls, and pierced with attachment hole and carved with a groove; the main side often carved with high-relief chilong, breaking with the traditional geometric pattern often seen on Warring States examples; they are often larger than the Warring States examples, since the iron swords popular in the Han Dynasty are larger and longer than the bronze swords of the Warring States period.
2. Sword guards: very distinctively decorated with a ridge in the centre making a rhombus-shaped cross section; the central aperture can be of rectangular, oval or rhombus shape; the decorations vary, sometimes with an animal mask on one side and cloud scrolls on the other; sometimes chilong in relief on one side and geometric pattern on the other; sometimes both sides are carved with the same decoration, but can also be completely plain.
3. Sword slide: mostly of rectangular shape, wider and longer than the Warring States examples, and richer in decorative techniques. It is often completely covered in fine grain, cloud or rush-mat patterns, sometimes with an added animal mask on one end; sometimes they are carved with one or two chilong in either incised, shallow relief or pierced high relief decoration.
4. Sword chape: of olive-nut-shaped cross section, normally with attachment holes on the side joining the sheath, some with a single circular perforation, others with three holes in a line – the central larger one drilled perpendicularly, while the two smaller on the sides drilled diagonally to connect with the central hole. The straight view is normally trapezoidal in form with slightly curved sides, and decorated with various patterns – animal masks and cloud scrolls in the early period, and relief carving of chilong, dragons or phoenixes etc. in the late period. The form might vary according to the jade material.