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A BLANC-DE-CHINE FIGURE OF LIU HAI
Circa 1900
The cheerful figure of the God of Wealth with one
leg raised teasingly above his three-legged toad with
bulging eyes, his intricately moulded robes partially
covering his emaciated body with accentuated spine
and rib-cage, a loincloth of leaves beneath the bare
belly, his robe tied to his right side with a gnarled
lingzhi fungus, the figure standing on stylised
swirling clouds.
33cm (13in) high

£2,500 - 3,000
HK$27,000 - 33,000 CNY23,000 - 28,000

約1900年 德化白瓷劉海踏蟾蜍立像

Provenance: a distinguished Belgian private
collection

來源：顯貴比利時私人收藏

Liu Hai and his three-legged toad - both symbols
of wealth and prosperity - are popular members of
the pantheon of Chinese folk deities; and there are
many myths and legends surrounding them that
have come down to us.

One such legend is that Liu Hai was an alchemist
and Daoist practitioner who passed by a village
where a three-legged toad inhabited a local pond.
This three-legged toad would emit a poisonous
vapour and harm the villagers; so Liu Hai tempted
the toad out with a chain of gold coins and made it
his pet.

How a toad became linked to wealth and riches
could be due in part to the nature of certain Chinese
dialects. The Chinese word for ‘toad’ is chan (蟾),
which in some dialects is a homophone for ‘money’
or qian (錢). Thus, in a dialect, one could easily hear
‘Liu Hai playing with the toad’ as ‘Liu Hai playing
with gold coins’.