Catalogue entry no. 380 by Max Loehr:
380 Symplegma of Animals in Openwork
Light brown, faintly translucent jade plaque in the shape of a plano-convex, slender trapezium. The body of this piece consists of two animal figures wrought in openwork. One of them, a quadruped of sorts, is rendered symmetrically; below the head, which lies between the forelegs, its body is split and “twisted” so that the hind legs lie pay to paw. The other, a kind of dragon, is places asymmetrically with its head lowermost. It is joined to the first animal by its curved tail and by two striated extensions that represent the divided tail of the fist. The dragon’s sinuous body is equipped with two unsymmetrical legs. Throughout, these bodies and limbs are painstakingly textured with scales, striae, and granules; the same textures are applied to the identically designed but flatter, reverse side of the plaque. The object is perforated lengthwise. Early Eastern Chou.
