Bonhams 1793 : A very fine deeply-carved green jade 'Immortals' rectangular panel Qianlong

Qianlong
The stone of an even soft green hue, superbly and deeply carved with a scene of Xiwangmu holding a peach in front of a richly-plumed phoenix on a rocky outcrop, beneath her the Daoist Immortals Zhang Guolao carrying a fish-drum, Cao Guojiu holding the castanets, Lan Caihe with the basket of flowers supported on a spade and a ruyi in the left hand, and Han Xiangzi playing the flute beside a small bridge, all set within an elaborate landscape of tall pines and rocky terraces framed by steep mountain-sides.
25cm (9 7/8in) high x 17.2cm (6¾in) wide x 2.4cm (15/16in) deep

Estimate:

£100,000 - 150,000
HK$ 1.2 million - 1.8 million
CNY 930,000 - 1.4 million

Footnotes

Provenance: a European private collection

清乾隆綠玉雕群仙會祝圖插屏

來源：歐洲私人收藏

The present lot is outstanding not only for the even quality of the stone and the skill of carving but particularly for its depth; the stone itself is 2.4cm thick, allowing for an exceptionally vividly carved and detailed scene. A related pair of panels, deeply-carved with a group of figures from similarly soft green stone, but with each panel in a horizontal form and slightly less thick than the present lot, is illustrated in Compendium of Collections in the Palace Museum, Jade 8, Qing Dynasty, Beijing and Hefei, 2011, pl.158.

Xi Wangmu 西王母, literally Queen Mother of the West, is most associated with Daoism, although the origins of this goddess can be traced back to oracle bone inscriptions of the 15th century BC that record sacrifices to a "Western Mother"; see Cahill, S. Transcendence & Divine Passion: The Queen Mother of the West in Medieval China, Stanford, 1993.

The Queen Mother of the West is often depicted accompanied by a phoenix within her palace on the mythological Mount Kunlun, which is supposed to be in western China (a modern Mount Kunlun is named after this). Her palace is believed to be a perfect and complete paradise, where it was used as a meeting place for the gods. In particular, it was the gathering-spot for the Daoist Immortals to celebrate the birthday of Xiwangmu, as shown in the present piece.

Category: Asian Art / Chinese Works of Art

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