PROPERTY FROM A PRIVATE ENGLISH COLLECTION (LOTS 131-133)Christie’s is delighted to offer these three magnificent jade carvings purchased by the vendor’s grandmother in the mid-1950s from the renowned London dealer Spink & Son Ltd. The vendor’s grandmother was a benefactor of Durham University’s Oriental Museum to whom she donated several Chinese works of art. She acquired these jade carvings to furnish her then newly purchased family home, the 16th century Elizabethan mansion Grove Place, in Nursling, Hampshire. A second group of jade animal carvings from this collection will be offered in these rooms in November 2019.

A LARGE PALE GREYISH-GREEN JADE CARVING OF AN ELEPHANT

18TH CENTURY

Details

A LARGE PALE GREYISH-GREEN JADE CARVING OF AN ELEPHANT
18TH CENTURY
The elephant is carved standing foursquare with smiling eyes and its trunk curled to the left. The folds of the elephant's skin are embellished with finely incised detail. The elephant's back and base of the feet are pierced with apertures for mounting. The stone is of a pale greenish tone suffused with grey veined inclusions.
9 in. (22.8 cm.) wide, wood stand

Provenance

With Spink & Son Ltd., London, purchased January 1956.

Brought to you by

Samantha Yuen

syuen@christies.com +44 (0)20 7104 5791

Lot Essay

The elephant is an auspicious symbol which is used in numerous rebuses to convey peace, prosperity and good fortune. In Buddhism, elephants are regarded as one of the Seven Treasures and in a broader context are seen as symbols of strength, wisdom and power. Ornately embellished figures of elephants in various materials were found in halls and throne rooms in the Imperial palace, such as the pair of spinach-green jade elephants with cloisonné caparisons illustrated by Zhang Hongxing, The Qianlong Emperor, Treasures from the Forbidden City, Edinburgh 2002, p. 44, no. 10. A mottled grey, black and green jade elephant, Qianlong period, of similar style and posture, from the collection of Oscar Raphael is illustrated by Stanley Charles Nott in Chinese Jade Throughout The Ages, Japan, 1962, plate LXX. An 18th century mottled grey jade elephant of comparable size (22 cm. wide) and posture from the Fitzwilliam Museum was exhibited at the Victoria and Albert Museum, 1 May - 22 June 1975, and illustrated in Chinese Jade Throughout the Ages, Oriental Ceramic Society, 1975, Fig 398, p.120.

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