A BLACK AND WHITE JADE CARVING OF THREE RAMS MING DYNASTY

in the form of three rams, the adult ram curled around nestling a young ram with another young ram clambering on the side of its neck, all three rams with their feet neatly tucked under their bodies, all with flat broad tails, the surface of the stone mostly black and dark brown with some white showing through

Alsdorf Collection, Chicago.
Sotheby's New York, 15th September 1999, lot 17.

Carvings of rams are full of auspicious symbolism as the ram represents filial piety, generosity and kindness as well as dedication and patience. The subject represented here is the popular 'three rams' group, that forms the rebus sanyang kaitai symbolizing the arrival of spring, and renewed prosperity.

Jade carvings of rams were made as early as the Song dynasty, for example, see a greyish white jade ram included in the exhibition Chinese Jade Animals, Hong Kong Museum of Art, Hong Kong, 1996, cat. no. 91, together with a group of a ewe with a lamb, cat. no. 90, also of the Song period. Compare another 'three rams' group worked in white jade, illustrated in Robert Kleiner, Chinese Jades from the Collection of Alan and Simone Hartman, Hong Kong, 1996, no. 194, and later sold at Christie's Hong Kong, 29^th November 2007, lot 1560; and another rams' group sold in these rooms, 19^th November 1985, lot 87.