A SMALL WHITE AND BROWN JADE CARVING OF TWO CATS

18TH/19TH CENTURY

Details

A SMALL WHITE AND BROWN JADE CARVING OF TWO CATS
18TH/19TH CENTURY
Carved as two cats lying atop a large banana leaf with serrated edges, with a lotus stem grasped in the mouth of one cat and a butterfly spanning their rumps, the opaque white stone with some tiny dark brown inclusions
3¾ in. (9.5 cm.) long

Lot Essay

The combination of butterfly (hudie) and cats (mao) symbolize the wish, 'may you live into your seventies and eighties' (maodie). For a small carving of a single cat with a butterfly shown atop a banana leaf see Terese Tse Bartholomew, Hidden Meanings in Chinese Art, The Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, 2006, p. 173, no. 7.8.1.

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