Seated figure in meditative attitude. Hongshan Culture, Late Neolithic, China (4000-3500 BC).

Seated figure in meditative attitude. Hongshan Culture, Late Neolithic, China (4000-3500 BC).
Pale green jade with brown traces.
Presence of a hanging hole.
Provenance: Throckmorton Gallery, New York.
Certificate of authenticity will be provided.
Measurements: 6 x 2,5 x 2 cm.

This refined Neolithic jade sculpture represents a seated human figure, small in size but with a powerful gestural intensity, whose design reveals the early development of a formal aesthetic of introspection and sacredness in the Hongshan culture (northeastern China). The subject appears in a curled-up or seated position, with arms resting on knees and head bowed, supported by both hands, in an attitude that has been interpreted as meditative, mournful or devotional. This gesture, unusual for Neolithic art, suggests an introspective dimension that exceeds the purely ornamental and points to shamanic or funerary conceptions of the body as a vehicle for the soul.

Made of pale green nephrite, with brown veins that could derive from both mineralization and prolonged contact with the ground, the piece was carved using meticulous abrasive procedures, which required months of work, given the extreme hardness of the jade. This technique not only reveals the degree of technological sophistication of the Hongshan workshops, but also the symbolic value they attributed to this incorruptible material, considered since then a sacred substance, bearer of spiritual purity and eternal power.

The presence of a pierced hole suggests that the figure may have been suspended from the neck or embedded in a larger ornament, functioning as an amulet, talisman or ritual attribute. Alternatively, it could also have been attached to a ceremonial staff, as a small totemic figure.