The architect Ralph Zeller, originally from Bergisch Gladbach, collected antique Chinese jade for over thirty years. Remarkable, since few private collections of such size come onto the market as a collection in Europe!

The importance of jade for China is immeasurable. For thousands of years, jade has not only been seen as a precious stone, but as a symbol of moral purity, immortality, power and heavenly strength. The material represented the virtues of the ideal human being: wisdom, courage, compassion and justice. For centuries, jade was considered the most revered material of the empire and was many times more valuable than gold or silver.

As a symbol of immortality, the Chinese emperors, the heavenly sons, were buried in a suit made up of pieces of jade. Hundreds to thousands of plates of hand-carved jade and sewn together with gold or silver thread protected the dead body from evil spirits and helped the soul on its way to the afterlife. In addition, they were surrounded by all kinds of jade shapes, such as amulets, as a symbol of immortality.

One of the most fascinating artifacts, of which we have six up for auction (lot numbers 3372, 3373, 3374, 3375, 3376, and 3402), is the cong, (pronounced tsong). It is a cylindrical tube surrounded by a square exterior, in other words, it has a round interior and a square exterior, and varies greatly in size. The cong objects are mainly from the Liangzhu culture (ca. 3300–2300 BCE) and have been found in tombs, often alongside other ritual objects such as the bi disk (lot numbers 3424, 3425, 3426, 3427, and 3433). These disks symbolized heaven, in contrast to the cong which was associated with earthly matters (“Tian yuan di fang” – heaven is round, earth is square).

In addition to this archaic collection, the collection also contains a large number of sculptural ornaments from the Ming to Qing dynasties (1368 – 1912). Some beautiful pieces are lot number 3448, a carved brown jade water buffalo, lot number 3437, a carved green camel and lot number 3439 a white qilin.

The collection is therefore within the material jade, very eclectic; ritual artefacts, parts of possible burial suits and other garments and sculptures and that from a time span of more than five millennia!

All objects from this collection can be found under provenance: “From the collection of architect Dipl. Ing. Ralph Zeller”