Although Pigs are not one of my favourite collectibles, nevertheless I will still uphold the good ole lunar new year tradition and dig up some odds and ends to celebrate Pig Year 2019
To my surprise I found quite a few, 12 to be exact of pigs made from jade, agate, glass and pottery. Their vintage range from ancient time to present day. Of the 12 pigs below 11 are from Chinese culture with one odd one out,. Can anyone guess which one?😊
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| 12 little piggies |
I will describe and enlarge each pig in detail. Starting with the oldest first, below is the little piggie from Xizhou dynasty (1046-771BC) see related link https://baiyu-quietmuse.blogspot.com/2017/05/in-praise-of-ancient-chinese-ornaments.html
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| 2cm x 1cm |
Next in order of age are 4 pigs made from jade and agate shown below maybe from China's Han dynasty (206BC -220AD) as they exhibit the characteristics and carving styles of Han dynasty pigs. The Han pigs are long and lank carved with the Han ba-dao (8 cut) style. The top two pigs are carved from jade and bottom two are made from agate. The bottom two are also beads as the have perforations.
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| Han dynasty pigs made from jade and agate |
A pottery pig from Tang dynasty (618-906AD) is shown in following picture.
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| Pottery pig from Tang dynasty |
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| These 5 are from the 20th century |
And so .... reader you guessed it the odd one out is the agate little pig from Myanmar's Pyu Dynasty (around 2nd century BC -11th century AD)
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| Snout nose pig from Pyu dynasty |
The ancient piggies are a bit sombre coloured and so to add de rigueur festive color to this post are 3 little pinkie piggy ang pows.
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| Happy Lunar New Year of the Pig 2019 |
