HONGSHAN CULTURE, CIRCA 4000-3000 BC

It is very rare to find a carving of a pig-dragon in the current size. For other examples of pig-dragons carved in a similar style with a single aperture, compare with a dark green jade example (16.6 cm. high) unearthed from Yangcheng, Bairin Right Banner, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, now in the Bairin Right Banner Museum (fig. 1), illustrated ibid., p. 105, no. 9; a celadon one (15 cm. high) in the Liaoning Provincial Institute of Archaeology and Cultural Relics, illustrated in Hongshan wenhua yuqi jianshang, Beijing, 2014, p. 94, no. 1 (fig. 2); and a third example (13 cm. high) from the Irving Collection, sold at Christie's New York, 21 March 2019, lot 1180.