A white jade figure of a horse, Qing dynasty, Qianlong period | 清乾隆 白玉臥馬

Skilfully fashioned in the round, this charming jade horse is notable for the portrait-quality in which it has been sensitively rendered. Its gentle smiling features and full rounded body has been endowed with a certain individuality through the jade stone from which it has been fashioned. The natural patches of brown that run through the celadon stone have been cleverly utilised to create a dappled effect that is reminiscent of one of the breeds in the imperial stables, the piebold horse that was depicted in several imperial paintings such as the seminal work by the Jesuit missionary and court artist Giuseppe Castiglione (1688-1766), One Hundred Horses (1728), in the National Palace Museum, Taipei. This grand painting, which depicts horses of various breeds and in lively poses brought to pasture in a beautiful mountainous landscape, took five years to complete and highlights the Yongzheng and Qianlong Emperor’s enthusiasm for their fine steeds. The meticulousness of the horses depicted in this painting also suggests that these are portraits of actual horses from the imperial stables, and the placement of the piebold horse in the centre of the scroll indicates its position of importance.

A larger horse fashioned from a mottled jade and carved in a similar style, from the collection of Sir John Woolf, was included in the exhibition The Woolf Collection of Chinese Jade, Sotheby’s, London, 2013, cat. no. 102, together with a pair of larger pale celadon examples, cat. no. 101; another in the British Museum, London is illustrated in Jessica Rawson, Chinese Jade. From the Neolithic to the Qing, London, 1995, pl. 16:20; a third from the H. Tutein Nolthenius collection, was included in the exhibition Oosterse Schatten – 4000 Jaar Aziatische Kunst, The Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, 1954, cat. no. 84; and a further horse was sold in these rooms, 31st March 1961, lot 171. See also a much larger example in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, illustrated in James C.S. Lin, The Immortal Stone. Chinese Jades from the Neolithic Period to the Twentieth Century, London, 2009, pl. 39; and another example, from the collection of Vernon Wethered (1865-1952), sold in these rooms, 10th May 2017, lot 277.