Page 52 - Sotheby's May 10th 2017 London Important Chinese Art
P. 52
PROPERTY FROM AN IMPORTANT ASIAN PRIVATE COLLECTION
137
A FINE WHITE JADE RUYI SCEPTRE Finely nished to a smooth and highly tactile polish, this piece
QING DYNASTY, 18TH/19TH CENTURY is notable for the delicate low-relief decoration that is limited to
the ruyi-head and shaft-end. Such restrained decoration draws
the large ruyi-shaped terminal carved in relief with two bats attention to and enhances the quality and translucency of the
anking a central shou character below a hanging jade stone stone. Ruyi sceptres were rarely made in jade prior to the 18th
century given the scarcity of large boulders, and only became
and wan, the slender elegantly arched shaft carved with available in larger quantities after the Western campaigns,
scrolled geometric motifs near the terminal, pierced at the end which subjugated the Dzungars and secured control over the
for threading a tassel, the translucent stone of an even white to area of Khotan and Yarkand, in present day Xinjiang. Jade
pale celadon tone with icy-white inclusions boulders from these areas were brought to the court, where
35 cm, 13¾ in. the best specimens were selected to be carved by artisans
working in the Palace Workshop, in the jade workshops
£ 40,000-60,000 of Suzhou or in those belonging to the Huai and Changlu
HK$ 386,000-580,000 US$ 49,700-74,500 administrations.
A white jade ruyi sceptre similarly carved on the head with
bats and a shou character in the National Palace Museum,
Taipei, was included in the Museum’s exhibition Masterpieces
of Chinese Ju-I Sceptres in the National Palace Museum, Taipei,
1974, cat. no. 4; one from the De An Tang collection, included
in the exhibition A Romance with Jade, Palace Museum,
Beijing, 2004, cat. no. 20, was sold at Christie’s Hong Kong,
29th May 2007, lot 1598; and a larger example, from the
collections of His Highness Maharaja Sir Padma Shumshere
Jung Bahadur Rana and the Princess Rama Malla, was sold in
these rooms, 15th May 2013, lot 5.
50 SOTHEBY’S
