Lot 29
  • 29

A massive celadon jade 'monkey' group Qing dynasty, 19th Century

Estimate
20,000 - 30,000 USD
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Description

well carved in the round with a large monkey and its young, seated with legs crossed and long tail curled up on its back, grasping a large peach in one hand and the stalk of a bough bearing further peaches in the other, its smaller young seated to the side playfully clambering for the ripe fruit, the stone of even celadon tone with some opaque veining, wood stand (2)

Provenance

RCE Auction, 22nd September 1983, lot 126.

Catalogue Note

The association of the monkey and peach recalls the Daoist legend and late Ming dynasty novel, Xiyou ji (Journey to the West), which recounts a fanciful tale of a monkey's theft of the Peaches of Immortality from the gardens of Xiwangmu, the Daoist Queen Mother of the Western Paradise.

Compare a very similar large white jade monkey group in the collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, illustrated in Stanley Charles Nott, Chinese Jade Throughout the Ages, London, 1936, pl. LXXVII.