QIANLONG PERIOD (1736-1795)

One of the favorite images of the rural idyll depicted by Chinese painters such as Li Tang (1050-after 1130) depicts a small boy either riding or leading a water buffalo. A painting by Li Tang, Herd Boy with Water Buffalo and Calf, in the National Palace Museum, Taipei is illustrated by A. B. Wicks (ed.) in Children in Chinese Art, Honolulu, 2002, p. 54, fig. 2.6. This became a theme seen in small jade carvings of the Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties. A similar example with a boy riding a water buffalo, dated to the Qianlong period, from the Anthony K. W. Cheung Collection, is illustrated in the exhibition catalogue, Virtuous Treasures: Chinese Jades for the Scholar's Table, University Museum and Art Gallery, The University of Hong Kong, 2007, pp. 170-71, no. 96.