QIANLONG PERIOD (1736-1795)

Details

AN EXQUISITE AND VERY RARE WHITE JADE HORSE GROUP
QIANLONG PERIOD (1736-1795)
The group is finely and naturalistically carved depicting one horse with its forelegs resting on the back of the other horse. Both are modelled recumbent and their necks intertwined. The details of the horses’ manes and tails are finely combed, and their eyes are inlaid with small ruby beads of bright and clear tone. The stone is of a pale tone with a few areas of russet inclusions.
5 ¼ in. (13.3 cm.) wide, carved wood stand, box

Provenance

From the collection at Crichel House, Dorset, thence by descent to the first Lord Alington and to his daughter, the Hon. Mrs Marten
Michael Gillingham, London
The Alan and Simone Hartman Collection, Part I,
Sold at Christie’s Hong Kong, 28 November 2006, lot 1422
Sold at Christie’s Hong Kong, 1 June 2011, lot 3638

Literature

R. Kleiner, Chinese Jades from the Collection of Alan and Simone Hartman, Hong Kong, 1996, p. 238, no. 187

Exhibited

Christie’s New York, 13-26 March 2001
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, August 2003 - December 2004

Brought to you by

Priscilla Kong

pkong@christies.cpm +852 29789958

Lot Essay

Stylistically the present lot draws some influence from the Mughal jades which entered the Qing court in considerable numbers during Emperor Qianlong’s reign. These jades were so admired by the emperor that he ordered Chinese jade lapidaries to create copies of these foreign jades and as well to produce Chinese objects in the Mughal style.

It is also very rare to find a pair of horses carved in jade, as most examples only feature single animals. Compare with two other pairs of horses, one in the Palace Museum, Beijing, illustrated in The Complete Collection of Treasures of the Palace Museum, Jadeware (III), Hong Kong, 1995, pl. 89; and the other, inscribed with a Qianlong seal mark, sold at Christie’s Hong Kong, 20 March 1990, lot 917, and again at Christie’s Hong Kong, 28 April 1996, lot 9.
The composition of the present pair of horses with one horse grooming the other is rendered in an exceptionally naturalistic manner and appears to be unique.

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