Lot Essay
The distinctive shape of this jade washer is after the archaic bronze pan from the Shang and Zhou dynasties, while the double-fish decoration is inspired by ornamentation found on Han dynasty bronze pan. Compare to a Qianlong-marked jade rounded washer (30.2 cm. diam.) with twin scaled fish in contact on their bellies and tails, illustrated in The Refined Taste of the Emperor: Special Exhibition of Archaic and Pictorial Jades of the Ch’ing Court,Taipei, 1997, no. 7. See a larger jade washer (25.4 cm. diam.) of similar form and decorated with detached twin fish and with Qianlong mark and inscriptions, from the Irving Collection, sold at Christie's New York, 20 March 2019, lot 806.