Page 290 - Christies IMportant Chinese Art Sept 26 2020 NYC
P. 290
THE PROPERTY OF A PRIVATE COLLECTOR, LOUISIANA
1777
A WHITE JADE 'BUFFALO AND BOY' GROUP
18TH CENTURY
The recumbent buffalo is shown with a boy playfully clambering onto One of the favorite images of the rural idyll depicted by Chinese
its back while holding the rope tied through the buffalo's nostrils. The painters such as Li Tang (1050-after 1130) shows a small boy either
stone has minor cloudy inclusions. riding or leading a water buffalo. A painting by Li Tang, Herd Boy
with Water Buffalo and Calf, in the National Palace Museum, Taipei
5¬ in. (14.4 cm.) wide
is illustrated by A. B. Wicks (ed.) in Children in Chinese Art, Honolulu,
2002, p. 54, fig. 2.6. This became a theme seen in small jade carvings
$15,000-25,000 of the Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties. Two such carvings, where the
boy either lies on or is beside the recumbent water buffalo which has
清十八世紀 白玉騎牛童子擺件 a rope through its nostrils, like the present carving, are illustrated by
James C.Y. Watt, Chinese Jade from Han to Ch'ing, The Asia Society,
New York, 1980, p. 66, nos. 47 and 48.
