Page 28 - Sotheby's October 3 2017 Chinese Art

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PROPERTY FROM A HONG KONG PRIVATE 清十八至十九世紀 白玉福壽如意活環耳洗
FAMILY COLLECTION
來源：
A PALE CELADON-WHITE JADE 倫敦佳士得1998年6月15日，編號266
BRUSH WASHER
QING DYNASTY, 18TH – 19TH
CENTURY

worked in the form of a lobed peach, the deep
rounded sides rising from four ruyi feet to
an incurved rim, flanked by a pair of handles
carved in the form of a bat perched on the
edge of the rim, above a loop fashioned as a
stylised lingzhi spray suspending a loose ring,
the exterior worked in low relief with another bat
with outstretched wings, grasping in its mouth
a long tassel pierced in openwork, suspending
a pair of interlaced bats, an endless knot and a
stylised shou character over the top of the vessel,
terminating in two pleated swags falling into wavy
ends on the opposite exterior, the stone of a pale
celadon-white tone flecked with dark speckles
16.5 cm, 6½ in.

PROVENANCE
Christie’s London, 15th June 1998, lot 266.

HK$ 400,000-600,000
US$ 51,500-77,000

A larger brush washer of this form and with a
shou character suspending from a tassel was
sold at Christie’s New York, 2nd December 1993,
lot 68; and a slightly smaller version was sold in
our London rooms, 21st February 1967, lot 7. See
also a bowl carved with the characters shuangxi
(‘double happiness’) hanging from a musical
stone, from the collection of George de Menasce
and now in the collection of Sir John Woolf,
included in the exhibition The Woolf Collection
of Chinese Jade, Sotheby’s, London, 2013, cat.
no. 63; one of slightly smaller size, illustrated in
Robert Kleiner, Chinese Jades from the Collection
of Alan and Simone Hartman, Hong Kong, 1996,
pl. 105; two sold in our London rooms, the first,
1st/2nd November 1984, lot 462, and the second,
7th November 2007, lot 385.

This piece is carved with numerous auspicious
messages and would have been considered
a suitable wedding or birthday gift. The shou
character is symbolic of long life, while the two
bat handles create the pun shuang fu, which
indicate double blessings.

26 SOTHEBY’S 蘇富比