A spinach-green jade 'tilling and weaving' screen, Qing dynasty, 18th / 19th century

William Clayton Ltd., London, 21st December 1965 (£560).

The present design closely follows a leaf from an album of paintings by court artist Jiao Bingzhen (ca. 1680-1720), the Yuzhi gengzhi tu (Imperially Commissioned Illustrations of Agriculture and Sericulture) which depicts the processes involved in rice growing and weaving. See a woodblock rendering of this design attributed to Zhu Gui with preface by the Kangxi Emperor (r. 1662-1722), preserved in the British Museum, London (accession no. 1949,0709,0.1).