Page 217 - SOTHEBYS MARCH 18 AND 19 2025

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A RARE SPINACH GREEN JADE BUFFALO, QING 清乾隆 碧玉臥牛擺件
DYNASTY, QIANLONG PERIOD
來源
wood stand (2) E.R. Butler 收藏，得於紐約，1992年
Width 8½ in., 21.6 cm

PROVENANCE
Collection of E.R. Butler, acquired in New York, 1992.
This tranquil yet imposing beast belongs to a small group
of buffalo carved from large boulders of jade during the
late Ming and High Qing periods. Buffalos have long been
associated in the Chinese tradition with an idealised rural
existence and are frequently depicted in Chinese literati
paintings as the reputed mount of the Doaist philosopher
and immortal, Laozi. Unlike these paintings, however,
depictions of buffalo hewn in jade remain extremely rare,
seemingly all produced for an imperial setting, and preserved
in some of the world’s most important collections:
Compare the Goldschmidt Buffalo, exhibited at the
influential Ausstellung Chinesischer Kunst, Gesellschaft für
Ostasiatische Kunst and Preußische Akademie der Künste,
Berlin, 1929, cat. no. 1085; another from the collections
of Lord Gladwyn and Sir Joseph Hotung, included in the
exhibition Chinese Jade from the Neolithic to the Qing, the
British Museum, London, 1995, cat. no. 26:19, where Jessica
Rawson describes the piece has having been taken directly
from the Summer Palace in Beijing; the Oscar Raphael
Buffalo, now in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, which
formed part of the Oriental Ceramic Society exhibition
Chinese Jade Throughout the Ages, Victoria and Albert
Museum, London, 1975, alongside two other jade buffalos,
cat. nos 395-7; the Rothschild Buffalo – hewn from a closely
related spinach stone – sold twice in our London rooms,
19th April 1937, lot 47, and 9th December 1948, lot 111, and
now preserved in the Woolf Collection of Chinese Jade,
no. 213, from which it was loaned to the British Museum,
London, 2003-2024; and the Ionides Buffalo, later in the
Hotchkis Collection, sold in our London rooms, 20th May
1954, lot 101. Compare also the spinach-green jade buffalo
from the collection of the Earl of Yarborough, complete with
its original Qianlong reign-marked gilt-bronze stand, sold at
Wooley & Wallis, 20th May 2009, lot 388.

⊖ $ 80,000-120,000

430 SOTHEBY’S COMPLETE CATALOGUING AVAILABLE AT SOTHEBYS.COM/N11744 MARCHANT – CHINESE JADES 431