China, ca. 10th century BC or earlier. Finely carved, face with large eyes, round pupils, thick arched brows, a broad nose, and slender lips, the ears subtly detailed in low relief with scroll designs, the head surmounted by a grooved headdress. The top pierced for suspension.

The semi-translucent jade is of a celadon hue with russet speckling, icy veining, and small areas of white calcification.

Provenance: From the collection of David Taylor (1876-1958), passed down through the Taylor family to his descendants. David Taylor (1876-1958), a prominent British businessman based in Belfast, owned several commercial properties and a substantial portfolio of stocks and shares. During his travels to East Asia in the early 20th century, he acquired numerous jades, including the present lot. His grandfather, Sir David Taylor (1815-1904), was born in Perth, Scotland, and relocated to Belfast in 1842, where he served as mayor in 1867, and again in 1883 and 1884.
Condition: Superb condition, commensurate with age. Ancient wear, signs of weathering and erosion, soil encrustations suggesting a prolonged period of burial, few tiny nicks. The jade with natural fissures, some of which may have developed into small hairline cracks.

Weight: 51.8 g
Dimensions: Height 5.2 cm

Expert’s note: The present lot belongs to an important group of monster-like human jades, often characterized by bulging eyes, protruding teeth, and thick lips. These features are closely related to the decoration of jades from a late Neolithic culture centered around the middle Yangtze River region in Shijiahe town, Hubei province. Several similar examples were excavated in 1955 and 1981 at Shijiahe culture sites, as illustrated in Du Jinpeng’s article, "Shijiahe yudiao shenxiang qianshuo [A Brief Discussion on the Jade Figures of Deities from the Shijiahe Culture]," in Jianghan Archaeology, Hubei, March 1993, pp. 51-59. For comparison, see a closely related jade ‘human face’ tubular bead from the Shang dynasty in the Shanghai Museum, illustrated in Yang Boda’s Zhongguo yuqi quanji [Complete Collection of Chinese Jades], Hebei, 2005, no. 178, and another larger example recovered from the Shang period burial at the Dayangzhou Chengjia site, Xingan county, Jiangxi province, illustrated in Xingan shangdai damu [The Large Shang Tomb in Xingan], 1997, p. 157, fig. 79, col. pl. 45.

Literature comparison:
Compare a related Shijiahe culture calcified jade ornament in the shape of a human head, excavated from the Xiaojia Roof site in Hubei Province, now in the Jingzhou Museum.

Auction result comparison:
Type: Related
Auction: Sotheby’s Hong Kong, 8 April 2023, lot 3794
Price: HKD 4,064,000 or approx. EUR 481,000 converted and adjusted for inflation at the time of writing
Description: A Shijiahe type pale celadon jade ‘human face’ plaque, early Western Zhou dynasty
Expert remark: Compare the related subject and manner of carving with a similar headdress. Note the flattened form and later dating. Notably, the hammer price significantly exceeded the initial estimate of HKD 300,000-500,000, indicating that bidders were likely unconvinced by Sotheby’s Western Zhou dating of this carving.