Page 59 - Sotheby's May 10th 2017 London Animal Menagerie, Chinese Art

The role of various animals in everyday domestic life ranged from transport, such as horses,
for working the land with buffalos and rams, and as pets, such as cats. These animals
were favoured for their symbolic associations that originated either from their roles, their
appearance or the phonetic pronunciation of their names.

Among them the horse is perhaps the most commonly portrayed as it acquired many
different political and social connotations through history. Highly appreciated by ruling
classes from as early as the Shang dynasty (16th century-c.1050 BC), by the Han period
(206 BC-AD 220) the finest of steeds, referred to as ‘celestial horses’, were imported from
the state of Wusun in central Asia. In the Yuan dynasty (1279-1368) horses also became a
symbol of the disenchanted Song loyalists, best exemplified in the famous painting Skinny
Horse, by Gong Kai, in the Osaka Municipal Museum, where the emaciated horse stands for
the learned scholar who lives in poverty. The Ming and Qing Emperors’ passion for horses
is evident in the numerous commissions of paintings depicting them riding their favourite
horses, for example the painting by Giuseppe Castiglione (1688-1766), The Qianlong
Emperor in Ceremonial Armour on Horseback (1758), in the Palace Museum, Beijing.

Charming depictions of pets, such as small cats often embellished with colourful collars
and bell-shaped pendants, were mostly associated with domestic life and appeared
together with children in elegant gardens. This genre grew in popularity in the Southern
Song dynasty (1127-1279) as it expressed prosperity and wealth, or the wish for it. In
carvings of the Ming and Qing dynasties, depictions of cats carry an entirely different
meaning: the word for cat (mao) is homophonous with the expressions ‘age eighty or
ninety’, hence it is a symbol of longevity.

A number of domesticated animals were also associated with the scholar-official class, such
as the buffalo and the donkey. Symbolic of strength and tranquillity, the bucolic aspect
of the former evokes the simple essence of life and thus would have resonated with an
official’s longing to escape to the countryside while tied to his duties and responsibilities of
officialdom. These animals are often depicted in resting poses to display their gentle nature.

(Le ) Anonymous, Mongol Circus, ink and colour on silk, handscroll, Yuan or Ming dynasty.
Courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.