Ancient and Most Skillful Technique: Jade Skeletonized and Carved with a Living Ring and Dragon Pattern Pendant

A jade pendant with a dragon motif, a jade object from the Warring States period, unearthed in 1978 from the tomb of Zeng Houyi in Suixian, Hubei Province.

This is a scrollable and unfoldable jade pendant, with a total length of 48 centimeters and a width of 8.3 centimeters. The overall pendant is a large dragon, the whole device with five pieces of jade, a jade ring and a jade lock nail carved into a movable folding sixteen sections, the use of translucent carving, relief carving, yin carving techniques such as carving into thirty-seven dragons, seven phoenixes and ten snakes, and is decorated with grain patterns.

The characteristics of its performance are mainly the following examples: the second section of the cloud pattern on the jade jade jade, is the use of pressure on the ground, the jade around the four dragons climbing, this form is to the late Warring States period is widely used; the eleventh section of the carving of three coiled dragons connected to the shape of the jade pendant, the dragon body for the "S" shape, the latter part of the Spring and Autumn Period in the Central Plains began to popularize the shape of jade pendant, sixteen sections of jade ornaments, but they are ingenious to use them in a large dragon body; The twelfth and thirteenth sections of the jade ornaments, respectively, are composed of double-headed and double-headed coiled dragons, each with a dragon carved on it; the ends of the fifteenth section of the jade ornaments are carved with standing phoenixes and phoenixes and birds holding snakes, which is a common theme in the southern Ch'u works of art, and has been found repeatedly in lacquer ware and other paintings.

The so-called living ring and chain process is the plane of the "search skeletonization" techniques used in three-dimensional "hollowing", that is, on a piece of jade material carved into several movable rings or pei, ring to ring ring pei buckle to form a connection, so that it can be folded and unfolding, but not It is a kind of craftsmanship which is removable.

This string of jade pendants is the longest and most complex and exquisite jade pendant in form, with the most rings and chains, and the most exquisite craftsmanship. The function and name of this pendant are still different opinions, one view is used as a pendant, another view is related to the small jade bird and bird unearthed at the same time. It is considered to be a crown decoration, that is, the crown tassel.