Monster mask plaque
Chinese, Shang Dynasty,
Ca. 1500 B.C., Jade,
Height: 2 1/2 inches.

This remarkable plaquette is carved with very low raised lines, one of the most painstaking of the jade carving techniques which required carving down the background reserving the thin raised areas and polishing it all. Only early Erlitou and early Shang objects are carved in this technique. The low relief of the carving here makes the object hard to read, and requires just the right light to make out the truly terrifying image represented; a fang mouthed frontal face with garlic bulb nose and stylized Shang eye with cutout curliques indicating hair or head dress and shoulder ornaments. One eye is drilled out, and the back is uncarved possibly implying that this was originally a Neolithic jade object, recarved in early Shang times, retaining the original hole, and giving the effect of one blind and one sighted eye. This work is very rare as there are few known parallels for this one drilled or blank eye as this depiction is only to be found in the pre-Columbian world, in Olmec or Mayan art.

It has been published before, in a catalogue Enduring Art of Jade Age China, volume II, by Elizabeth Childs-Johnson, published by Throckmorton Fine Arts, number 23. In her beautifully written description she says:

“The image is the familiar icon of metamorphosis: a semi-human with a double pair of fangs and stylized headgear that once more representationally referred to feather extensions and perforated earlobes. Stylization is rampant: the headgear is outlined as a straight edged crown with three framing pairs of curls…..One eye is circular, worked with a bronze framed hollow drill, the other is freaky, created as a large open hole drilled from the front, probably signifying a portal to the spirit realm. Facial attributes are mostly sculpted as thin raised lines (yangwen) with highly stylized, tightly curled terminals.....”

Childs-Johnson describes the piece beautifully and goes on to discuss the role of metamorphosis in early Chinese religion through the Han dynasty. It was a shamanic religion with much in common with the Mesoamerican belief system, which may account for the many similarities to be found in the art of these two distant areas.