LATE 18TH/EARLY 19TH CENTURY

A very similar elephant in the Palace Museum, Beijing, decorated in the same palette, with the exception of the saddle which is picked out in blue rather than pink, is illustrated in Yinliuzhai shuoci yizhu (Commentary on Porcelain from the Studio of Drinking Streams), Beijing, 2005, p. 450, fig. 9-43, where it is attributed to the Qianlong period. A pair of closely related elephants from the Copeland Collection, in the Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, is illustrated in The Copeland Collection - Chinese and Japanese Ceramic Figures, Milan, 1991, pp. 196-97, no. 94.