Featured How old are these nephrite statues?

First of all, all the best for 2026. I was very lucky to get these nephrite jade statues practecly as a present. They are made of nephrite jade and the arms and heads are made seperate. They measure 70 cm high and 32 cm wide. the style of the heads is the same as the Sanxingdui culture. And the bodies are all hand carved in high relief and have NOT been treated with acid to make them look older like most of the nephrite jade han and hongshan fakes. If anyone knows the age of these statues i would love to hear it.




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here is a fake han dynasty jade bear with the acid treatment: https://www.invaluable.com/auction-...-69dF_VE-biVu4mbklV35mNrcyO7HAPSTvtgrCK3PYXMD

closeup of the fake han jade bear.

 

that's a lot of what you're saying is jade........ wow.

 

Would they have been holding something? I'm completely unfamiliar with these.

Temple guards?

 

The original bronzes held something. In the same excavation were found an elephant tusk and something else, can't remember what. Those items are thought to have been held by the originals, which were bigger than these and (from memory) stood on a tall construction.

Maybe they held burial gifts.

No doubt hunt will object to this reply and say that his are of the period. Been there, done that, several times.
So I only replied to answer your question.

 

The one match Lens found was to an expired listing on a German marketplace site that was for a pair of what they called temple guards. I haven't a clue about accuracy, but thought it interesting that they too had a pair, unless these are the same ones.

 

Maybe you saw the expired link to the Dutch marktplaats site? The seller didin't know what they were. I guess that is where hunt, who lives in the Netherlands, got them from.

 

The original bronze figure:

https://www.artoftheancestors.com/blog/sanxingdui-museum-relics

There are also several kneeling figures on the page above, so these jades are probably a combination of both. Chinese jade workers often do that.
I can't find information on the attributes found with the standing figure, maybe someone else can.

 

do you have that link i couldn´t find it?

 

don´t worry i am being very carefully, but have you seen the replica bear from the link i posted that they are calling a han dynasty jade bear with zhou dynasty decoration. Mine are super well carved and not treated with acid. what does that tell you?

 

Yes, just checked. I was being nagged by cats at the time & only took a hasty look, with a focus on the description, which IM Translator renders as "A couple of temple guards stone statue." So there are not a pair of pairs after all.

 

they are temple guards yes but thatś all i know.

 

look at the legs they are oposite of each other so they are a pair. but each statue has been made by a different person and have differences . the people who sold them thought they where made from stoneware.

see this example also with opposit placed legs

 

Weird. Google showed the photo with 2 figures & when I followed the associated link I again saw 2 figures. When I copied the URL & pasted it into a new tab to see what it led to, I got a photo with 1 figure. When I went back to the tab showing 2, it had changed to 1. When I started over it again showed 1. It just tells me the listing is expired & I'm not able to see more than 1 photo & the start of the description, but this is it:

https://www.marktplaats.nl/v/antiek...ken/m2339851237-steengoed-tempelwachter-beeld

 

MP does that for a reason. but those are my statues as Any Jewelry mentioned

 

I was not questioning whether your two are a pair, I was confirming my understanding that there are not a total of 4 of them. What I said was

So there are not a pair of pairs after all.

 

ooooo i see what you mean, sorry.

 

are they han dynasty style statues judging by the carvings on the body which corresponds with the han dynasty style jade bear from the posted link. with the heads of sanxingdui figures???It's allot of work to make these. loving them . the bear has been sold by the way, curious what they paid for it. another han dynasty bear sold for 7 million dollars and that whas also a replica. And i know that because i had bought a large private collection of that type of nephrite jade threated with acid to ages the pieces. That collection had everything from liangzhu culture to han dynasty pieces.

 

Those are modern Balinese garden statues inspired by an original Javanese Dwarapala statue of which only a single one is known.

So a single original from another part of the world, nothing to do with Archaic Chinese cultures.

 

Nothing at all.
There are countless Chinese "archaic" jades made in the last decades that aren't acid treated. I also have a few, bought them as decorative objects, not as the real deal.