A pale celadon jade 'prunus' vase and cover, Qing dynasty, Qianlong period

Widener Collection.

Ninety Jades for 90 Years, Marchant, London, 2015, cat. no. 80.

The plum blossom or prunus, meihua, is the first flower to bloom each year. Symbolising spring, perseverance, purity and renewal, it is traditionally considered one of the ‘Three Friends of Winter’ (san han san you) alongside pine and bamboo. Masterfully carved with swirling branches, the present prunus is depicted amongst scholars’ rocks (shoushi) with the mythical lingzhi fungus and narcissus (shuixian) blooms growing alongside. This combination is itself a celebrated and auspicious motif forming the rebus, zhixian zhushou, ‘May the Fungus Immortal grant you long life’. 

A number of similar vases are known, treasured in the Qing Court collection and preserved in the Palace Museums. Compare an example illustrated in The Complete Collection of Treasures of the Palace Museum. Jade Ware (III), Hong Kong, 1995, pl. 67; another featuring closely related rockwork in the Compendium of Collections in the Palace Museum, Jade, vol. 10: Qing Dynasty, Beijing, 2011, pl. 38; and another preserved in Taipei, illustrated in Jade: Ch’ing Dynasty Treasures, from the National Museum of History, Taiwan, no. 113, p. 180.

The family and descendants of Peter Arrell Brown Widener (1834-1915) and his wife Hannah Josephine Dunton (1836-1896) were from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and were one of the wealthiest families in the United States. In 1883, Widener was part of the founding partnership of the Philadelphia Traction Company and used the great wealth accumulated from that business to become a founding organiser of U.S. Steel and the American Tobacco Company. Their legacy includes the Widener Library at Harvard University and the Widener University in Chester, Pennsylvania. Their descendants became one the prominent factors in American thoroughbred horseracing history, as well as founding benefactors of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D. C.