SONG DYNASTY (960-1279)

It is interesting to note the modelling of the present horse with its legs outstretched. Jade animals were popular during the Song period reviving a tradition that flourished during the Tang dynasty. The present jade is more likely to be inspired by early carvings such as the recumbent horse on a rectangular base in the Victor Shaw Collection, illustrated by J. Watt, Chinese Jades from the Han to Ch’ing, 1980, no. 65 which the author dates to the Tang dynasty. The mottling of the jade surfaces is very similar to a recumbent jade ram in the British Museum illustrated by J. Rawson, Chinese Jade from the Neolithic to the Qing, London, 1995, p. 368, fig. 1, which entered the Museum’s collection in 1937.