宋 褐斑黃玉雕臥犬把件

deftly carved in the round as a recumbent dog with its head turned backwards, its snout and floppy ears naturalistically depicted, its taut muscles accented with a crenulated spine terminating with a finely incised curled tail, the stone of an attractive greenish-yellow colour with russet and dark inclusions

Sensitively modelled with a finely detailed curling tail extending from a knobbly spine and carefully modelled paws characteristic of the Song period, jade carvings of dogs in a resting pose can be found from as early as the Tang dynasty. The present piece belongs to a group of distinctive animals carved from yellow jade pebbles and depicted in naturalistic poses, a genre that was particularly popular from the Song dynasty to the early Qing.

A crouching jade dog, attributed to the Song dynasty, is illustrated in Jessica Rawson, Chinese Jade from the Neolithic to the Qing, London, 1995, pl. 26:10, where the author notes that ‘hounds in jade may have been worn by those who wished to be known for their prowess in hunting’ (p. 367). Compare a jade carving of a dog in a similar pose, but wearing a collar, sold in our London rooms, 16th May 2012, lot 40; one, but rendered with its head looking over its left shoulder, from the collection of Alan and Simone Hartman, sold in these rooms, 25th November 1987, lot 438, and again at Christie’s Hong Kong, 28th November 2006, lot 1440; and another from the Zhirouzhai collection, but of smaller size and the dog carved with head facing forward, included in the exhibition Exquisite Jade Carving, Art Gallery, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, 1996, cat. no. 85, and sold in these rooms, 8th October 2008, lot 2312.