SHUNZHI PERIOD, CIRCA 1650

Images of the dragon and tiger, two of the Four Divinities in Daoism, are known in China since at least the Zhou dynasty (c. 1050-256 BC). (Stephen Little with Shawn Eichman, Taoism and the Arts of China, Chicago, 2000, p. 130) Representing two of the four cardinal directions, East (dragon) and West (tiger), they also symbolize the elements fire and metal. As explained by Little and Eichman, ibid., “In Taoist chemical alchemy (waidan, or “outer” alchemy), the tiger and dragon also represent two of the most powerful elixir ingredients known, lead and mercury, while in the Inner Alchemy (neidan) tradition, the two animals symbolize yin and yang as they are brought together in the inner (human) body through visualization and transformed to create a divine embryonic form of the practitioner."

For a blue and white Shunzhi period jar from the Curtis Collection on which these two animals also appear, see lot 3551 in the present catalogue.