QING DYNASTY, 18TH CENTURY

According to Terese Tse Bartholomew in Hidden Meanings in Chinese Art, Hong Kong, 2006, p. 192, two geese together symbolises the wish for a happy marriage as geese mate for life. Geese also represent good news, stemming from a story about Su Wu, who was in the 2nd century BC captured by the Xiongnu. He was able to engineer his rescue by attaching a letter destined for the emperor to the leg of a goose who was returning to China.

Compare a carving of three geese described as a brush rest in the Palace Museum Collection, Beijing, illustrated in The Life of Emperor Qianlong, Macao Museum of Art, Macao, 2002, p. 220, no. 63.25, dating to the Mid-Qing dynasty.