Page 148 - Sotheby's May 10th 2017 London Important Chinese Art

277 Skilfully fashioned in the round, this charming jade horse is
notable for the portrait-quality in which it has been sensitively
PROPERTY OF A GENTLEMAN rendered. Its gentle smiling features and full rounded body
has been endowed with a certain individuality through the jade
A RARE PALE CELADON MOTTLED stone from which it has been fashioned. The natural patches of
JADE HORSE brown that run through the celadon stone have been cleverly
QING DYNASTY, YONGZHENG/QIANLONG utilised to create a dappled e ect that is reminiscent of one
PERIOD of the breeds in the imperial stables, the piebold horse that
was depicted in several imperial paintings such as the seminal
skilfully worked in the form of a recumbent horse turning its work by the Jesuit missionary and court artist Giuseppe
head sharply to rest on its rounded back, with the front left Castiglione (1688-1766), One Hundred Horses (1728), in the
leg raised and its hind hooves tucked beneath its body, the National Palace Museum, Taipei ( g. 1). This grand painting,
tail and mane nely detailed with incisions, the tail rendered which depicts horses of various breeds and in lively poses
swept to the side, the polished stone of a pale celadon colour brought to pasture in a beautiful mountainous landscape,
accentuated with russet patches cleverly worked as its took ve years to complete and highlights the Yongzheng
dappled coat and Qianlong Emperor’s enthusiasm for their ne steeds. The
12.5 cm, 4 in. meticulousness of the horses depicted in this painting also
suggests that these are portraits of actual horses from the
PROVENANCE imperial stables, and the placement of the piebold horse in the
Collection of Vernon Wethered (1865-1952). centre of the scroll indicates its position of importance.
Thence by decent to the present owner.
A larger horse fashioned from a mottled jade and carved in
EXHIBITED a similar style, from the collection of Sir John Woolf, was
On loan to the Ashmolean Museum from 1982 to 2017. included in the exhibition The Woolf Collection of Chinese
Jade, Sotheby’s, London, 2013, cat. no. 102, together with a
£ 30,000-50,000 pair of larger pale celadon examples, cat. no. 101; another in
HK$ 290,000-483,000 US$ 37,300-62,500 the British Museum, London is illustrated in Jessica Rawson,
Chinese Jade. From the Neolithic to the Qing, London, 1995,
Vernon Wethered 1865 1952 pl. 16:20; a third from the H. Tutein Nolthenius collection,
was included in the exhibition Oosterse Schatten – 4000 Jaar
1982 2017 Aziatische Kunst, The Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, 1954, cat. no.
84; and a further horse was sold in these rooms, 31st March
1961, lot 171. See also a much larger example in the Fitzwilliam
Museum, Cambridge, illustrated in James C.S. Lin, The
Immortal Stone. Chinese Jades from the Neolithic Period to the
Twentieth Century, London, 2009, pl. 39.

Vernon Wethered was a founding member of the Oriental
Ceramic Society in 1921 and was a client of Bluett’s from 1912.
His collection of Chinese ceramics and works of art was sold in
these rooms on 6th May 1936.

Vernon Wethered

Giuseppe Castiglione (1688-1766), One Hundred Horses, ink and colour on silk, handscroll, Qing Dynasty (1728).
Courtesy of the National Palace Museum.

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