Published: Filippo Salviati, The Language of Adornment: Chinese Ornaments of Jade, Crystal, Amber and Glass from the Neolithic Period to the Qing Dynasty, Myrna Myers, 2002, no. 58.

China, 206 BC-220 AD. Of flattened form, boldly incised with a dancer wearing long robes with folds carved vertically down the elongated sleeves. The dancer holding her left arm above her head and her right arm in front in a dynamic motion. Three apertures for mounting. The opaque stone has a celadon tone with alteration throughout.

Provenance: From the Sam and Myrna Myers Collection. Sam and Myrna are first generation Americans, who shared a taste for collecting beautiful objects of art. On a trip to Ascona, Switzerland, the couple stumbled into a small antique shop which started their journey of collecting antiques. When Sam Myers was sent to Paris by his law firm in the mid-1960s, he and his wife Myrna became so enamored with the city that they decided to make it their home. There, over the course of 50 years, they built an extraordinary art collection, and in 1976, Myrna opened a gallery in Paris specializing in Asian art. Their collection spans a wide range of precious objects from Chinese jades, ceramics, textiles, Indian ivory carvings, to Japanese clothing and lacquer, some of which was exhibited in the Kimbell Art Museum. Part of their collection was sold at Sotheby’s, London ‘Two Americans in Paris, The Collection of Sam and Myrna Myers’, on 4 November 2021. The couple also worked together with jade expert Filippo Salviati to create one of the most outstanding jade collections globally and authored several books on jade, including ‘Radiant Stones’ (2000), ‘The Language of Adornment’ (2002) and ‘Genèse de l’empire céleste’ (2020).
Condition: Signs of weathering and erosion, soil encrustations suggesting a prolonged period of burial, shallow chips to edges, and a repair at the upper part.

Weight: 8.3 g
Dimensions: Height 4.4 cm

This dancer is dressed in long layered robes with oversized sleeves. She captures the stately motion and austere spirit of the "sleeve-tossing dance" style (chang xiu wu) which featured a continuous, controlled and coordinated movement of the long sleeves. The Han dynasty writer Zhang Hong (78-139) described this dance form in one of his poems:

Their vermilion slippers danced between plates and goblets
And they waved their long, dangling sleeves
With a curvaceous, cultivated bearing
Their lovely dresses fluttered like flowers in the wind.

Literature comparison:
Compare a related jade pendant in the form of a dancer, 6.3 cm high, dated to the late Western Han dynasty, in the National Museum of Asian Art, Smithsonian Institution, accession number S1987.848. Compare a related jade ornament in the form of a female dancer, 9 cm high, dated to the Western Han dynasty, in the National Museum of Asian Art, Smithsonian Institution, accession number S2012.9.2755.

Auction result comparison:
Type: Related
Auction: Bonhams Hong Kong, 29 May 2024, lot 441
Price: HKD 51,200 or approx. EUR 6,100 converted at the time of writing
Description: A beige jade carving of a dancing figure, Western Han dynasty
Expert remark: Compare the related form and style. Note the openwork. Note the similar size (4.8 cm).