An unusual Chinese gilt-lacquered jade mythical beast 珍罕漆金玉雕瑞兽

Vividly carved in grayish white jade as a crouching mythical beast, the beast with a lion-like face with elongated pendant ears, prominent forehead, bulging eyes, scroll nostrils above symmetrical wrinkles around the wide mouth, the tail finely incised and scrolling, humped spine; all lacquered in gold, except for the lips and beard lacquered in red, eyes, eyebrows, tails, and hoofs lacquered in black.

H: 4 1/2 in.; L: 9 3/4 in.; W: 3 1/4 in.

NOTE:

The rich gilding, the high quality carving, and the scale of the jade all indicate the careful labor and time spent on the piece, suggesting a date during the Qianlong/Jiaqing period, when jade was relatively available and new modes and methods of embellishment were employed. Only one other lacquered jade sculpture has been located to date, a figure of Shoulao, offered in a Taiwan auction house and subsequently sold in the private trade.

The sharp kick to the back of the legs show the influence of archaic jade carvings. See a Western Han jade seal excavated from the tomb of Liu Sheng, Prince of Zhongshan, Mancheng, Hebei Province in Hebei Provincial Center for Cultural Heritage Preservation, illustrated in Gu Fang, editor, “The Complete Collection of Unearthed Jades In China”, Beijing, 2005, vol. 1, p. 195. A closely related but smaller jade carved beast from Qing Court collection in the Palace Museum, Beijing, illustrated in Zhang Gunagwen, editor, “The Complete Collection of Treasures of the Palace Museum, Jadeware”, Hong Kong, 1995, p. 113. A similar larger yellow and russet jade carving of a mythical beast with humped back from Collection of Stephen Junkunc, III, was sold at Sotheby’s, New York, September 22, 2020, lot 227 (dated to the Qianlong period). For another smaller beast of similar form, dated to the Song/Yuan dynasties, formerly in the collection of Gerald Godfrey (offered Christie’s, Hong Kong, October 30, 1995, lot 875, as 17^th century); see Christie’s Hong Kong, January 18, 1989, lot 897c. See also the 4 ½” long mythical beast illustrated in James C. Y. Watt, “Chinese Jades from the Collection of the Seattle Art Museum”, Seattle, 1989, no. 55, tentatively dated as late Ming to early Qing dynasty.