宋或更早 雞骨白玉兔

carved crouching with its head tucked in between its forelegs, detailed with raised hindquarters and straight-up ears, pierced on the side to thread a string, the calcified stone of an attractive golden-brown colour, finely worked to a smooth polish

Small carvings of hares and rabbits are known from as early as the Han and Tang dynasties, such as one included in the exhibition Chinese Jade Animals, Hong Kong Museum of Art, Hong Kong, 1996, cat. no. 39; and another in the British Museum, London, illustrated in Jessica Rawson, Chinese Jade from the Neolithic to the Qing, London, 1995, pl. 26:9, where the author notes that ‘the relatively large numbers of hares suggests that they were especially favoured, perhaps because the hare was associated with the moon, where it was said to pound the elixir of immortality’, p. 365.
A further similar carving in the Museum of East Asian Art, Bath, is illustrated in Angus Forsyth and Brian McElney, Jades from China, Bath, 1994, pl. 210; another is published in Zhongguo meishu quanji. Yuqi [Complete collection of Chinese Art. Jade], vol. 9, Beijing, 1991, pl. 246; compare also two jade rabbits sold in these rooms, 8th October 2010, lot 281 and 1st December 2016. lot 32, from the Muwen Tang collection.