Two hairpins

Both of these pins are made of dark green jade with a slightly polished surface. The shorter one is a square-faceted column with a flat bottom. At the top sits a high-relief lion above a meander encircling the column. Shallow-relief scenes with calligraphy titles decorate the sides: willows on a riverbank, entitled "waves by green willows," and blown willows, described as "by the river," on two sides; the pleasure of a fisherman, accompanied by the title "small boat," and a "fishhook" on the other two sides. All the calligraphy is rendered in raised characters, but the background around them is coarsely executed and not very flat. The simple, strong grooves display an early style. This piece can be used as both a hairpin and a personal seal. A Ming tomb in Shanghai contained similar jade hairpins in white jade, with the seal of a lion in relief above a meander circle (Zgyqqj 1993, vol. 5, plate 220).
The longer hairpin has a rounded column, tapering slightly to a blunt rounded end. Strong curved cuts define a scene of a dragonet (young dragon) amid fungi on the surface and the domed top, under which two characters spell Zigang in raised cursive script. Lu Zigang (late 1500s) probably came from Taicang county in Jiangsu province and settled in the jade craft center at Suzhou. He was well known in the late Ming as a great jade master, and his work has been widely reproduced. The local annals of Suzhou and Taicang (compiled between 1800 and 1900) record that Lu made jade hairpins with two designs: narcissus plants whose stems were as delicate and refined as human hair; and raised calligraphy containing more than one character on each piece. Only one hairpin, from the National Palace Museum, Taipei, has been published as a documented narcissus pin (Teng 1981, 77, plate 10). The piece shown here bears the "raised calligraphy" and his name, but the execution lacks the refined quality seen on most Zigang-attributed jades.