18TH CENTURY

Details

A GREENISH-WHITE JADE BUDDHISTIC LION GROUP
18TH CENTURY
Carved as a recumbent adult lion and two playful cubs, one crawling up the side atop the tail, the other lying in front of the left forepaw, all with flat ruyi-shaped nose, curly brows, mane and tufted tail carved with fine hair markings, floppy, backswept ears and knobbed backbone dividing the long segmented hair on the back, the greenish- white stone with some opaque white inclusions enhanced with russet coloring
8¼ in. (21 cm.) across, wood stand, box

Provenance

Collection of Mr. M.H.T. Hodgson.
Sotheby's, New York, 16-17 March 1984, lot 232.

Exhibited

London, The Arts Council of Great Britain and the Oriental Ceramic Society, The Animal in Chinese Art, 1968, no. 187.

Lot Essay

According to Terese Tse Bartholomew, Hidden Meanings in Chinese Art, The Asian Art Museum, San Francisco, 2006, p. 116, no. 5.17, the large lion (dashi) and a small lion (xiaoshi) form the rebus, 'May you and your descendant achieve high rank'. The author shows a jade carving of a large and small lion to illustrate this rebus. Another white jade carving of an adult lion and a cub is illustrated in Zhongguo yuqi quanji, vol. 6, 1991, p. 210, no. 306. See, also, the jade carving of a buddhistic lion and its cub sold in our Hong Kong rooms, 1 November 2004, lot 1035.

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