The large pottery jar decorated with circles and an anthropomorphic motif. The top section of the body decorated with a motif that most likely represents a seated figure, legs apart and with raised arms and five fingers. The body is further decorated with five leaf-shaped elements, generally interpreted as cowrie shells, on either side of the figures. The sides of the body are flanked by two handles.
A large painted pottery jar (Neolithic period, Majiayao culture, Machang type, late 3rd millennium BC )
Description
Dimensions: 37.5cm high
Provenance:
Gisèle Croës Oriental Art, Brussels, 5 February 1987 (invoice)
A private Belgian collection
The large pottery jar decorated with circles and an anthropomorphic motif. The top section of the body decorated with a motif that most likely represents a seated figure, legs apart and with raised arms and five fingers. The body is further decorated with five leaf-shaped elements, generally interpreted as cowrie shells, on either side of the figures. The sides of the body are flanked by two handles.
Above the handles, two large concentric rings in a two-tone design, along with a crown of small reserved dots, encircle a large hatched central circle. The remaining surface is decorated with a motif likely depicting a seated figure, with legs spread and arms raised- each of the five fingers clearly outlined. If we accept this interpretation, the head of the figure would align with the jar’s opening. Similar jars from the earlier Banshan phase (c. 2600 – 2300 BC) feature comparable designs, though with more distinctly human figures, suggesting this may be a more stylised version of a shared motif. It is worth noting that human representation was neither especially prominent nor enduring in the Banshan and Machang cultures.
An identical jar from the Avery Brundage Collection is in the Asian Museum of Art in San Francisco; another is published by Nils Palmgren, ‘Kansu mortuary urns of the Pan Shan and Ma Chang groups’, Palaeontologia Sinica, Stockholm, 1934, pl. XXXIX, fig 6. Compare a very similar jar, but without the added ‘leaf’ design, sold at Christie’s New York, 22 September 2023, lot 1046.
