Page 33 - 2021 March 15th Fine Chinese Paintings and Works of Art, Bonhams NYC New York

PROPERTY OF AN ENGLISH LADY
30
A RARE GREY, BLACK AND BROWN JADE FIGURE OF
ZHOU YANZI
17th Century or earlier
The standing figure clutching a milk pail in his right hand and wearing
knee-length robes tied at his waist over baggy pants, his right hand
bent backwards to clutch the hoof of a deer, the skin of which he
wears as a cloak, the deer’s head covering the top and back of the
boys shaved head, the deer’s antler’s and ears hanging down to the
neck, the four legs and hooves and tail of the animal skin delicately
carved in fine details to the reverse side which is itself cut from the
dark skin of the pebble.
3 1/4in (8.2cm) high

$3,000 - 5,000 Provenance
Spink and Son, Ltd., London
十七世纪或更早 灰黑玉雕鹿乳奉親
來源
Spink and Son, Ltd., 倫敦

For another Ming example carved from a celadon-white pebble with
a russet skin, see S. Howard Hansford, The Arts of the Ming Dynasty:
Carvings in Jade, Ivory, Rhinoceros Horn and Bamboo, Transactions
of the Oriental Ceramic Society, 1955-56/1256-57, London, 1958,
p. 55, no. 356, pl. 95 and which entered the Arthur M. Sackler
Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC, in 1987 (accession
no.S1987.759). See two others of slightly differing concept but similar
size, Chinese Jade: An Important Private Collection, Spink & Son,
London, 1991, no. 120; and Post-Archaic Chinese Jades from Private
Collections, S. Marchant and Son, London, 2000, no. 23.

Other examples have appeared at auction infrequently, all of slightly
differing concept but of the same subject, the morally-instructive
Chinese folk-tale and later Confucian exemplum praising filial piety.
The figure of Zhou Yanzi is depicted wearing a deerskin draped over
his head to hide his identity from a herd of deer in order to gather milk
for his ailing father. For others, see Sotheby’s, London, 7 December
1993, lot 92; Sotheby’s, New York, 31 March 2005, lot 57; Christie’s,
London, 10 May 2015, lot 20; and another similarly-sized example at
Sotheby’s, New York, The Robert Youngman Collection of Chinese
Jade, 19 March 2019, lot 241 and also illustrated by Robert P.
Youngman, The Youngman Collection of Chinese Jades from Neolithic
to Qing, Chicago, 2008, pl. 181.
Lot 30 (Three views)
FINE CHINESE PAINTINGS & WORKS OF ART | 31