Page 137 - Sotheby's Arcadian beauty Song Pottery Oct. 3, 2018

Song dynasty jade carvings of buffaloes of any size are rarer
than representations of other animals, and the exceptional
size of the current sculpture makes it all the rarer. However,
several examples are recorded in museum and private
collections, including a small greyish-white jade figure of a
buffalo in the collection of Sir Joseph Hotung, included in
the exhibition Chinese Jade Animals, Hong Kong Museum of
Art, Hong Kong, 1996, cat. no. 109, and illustrated in Jessica
Rawson, Chinese Jade from the Neolithic to the Qing, op.
cit, p. 370, fig. 26:14, where she notes the rarity of figures of
buffaloes among pre-Ming jade animal carvings and argues
that the smoothness and relaxed appearance appears to
derive from the painting tradition, and that a ‘vogue for
pastoral imagery was instrumental in the carving of jade
buffaloes’.
Several Song dynasty jade carvings of mythical animals also
exhibit a similar style of craftsmanship as on the current
buffalo – the naturalistic carving with monumental simplicity
of form, spontaneously created so close to the shape of the
original pebble or boulder. This can be seen in the precise turn
of the head and recumbent posture on the current buffalo, and
on other smaller Song jade animals, including a greyish-white
jade figure of a mythical beast from the Hei-Chi collection,
playfully rendered in an archaistic style characteristic of the
period, included in the exhibition Chinese Jade Animals, Hong
Kong Museum of Art, Hong Kong, 1996, cat. no. 83, and sold
in these rooms, 8th April 2010, lot 1992. It shares a similar

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