Footnotes

• 清乾隆 白玉雕三羊開泰紋雙耳蓋爐
  
  Provenance: Sotheby's London, 28th October 1983, lot 201
  Later acquired from Roger Keverne Ltd., London, on 27 October 1998
  A Western private collection
  
  來源：倫敦蘇富比，1983年10月28日，拍品編號201
  後來在1998年10月27日購於倫敦古董商Roger Keverne
  西方私人收藏
  
  The present white jade incense burner and cover is Imperial in its symbolic carving, from the exquisite dragon finial to the phoenix handles, traditionally associated with the Emperor and Empress respectively. For a similar pale green jade incense burner and cover, Qianlong, but without the sanyang and with tubular feet, in the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, see R. Lefebvre d'Argencé, Chinese Jades in the Avery Brundage Collection, San Francisco, 1977, pl.LIV.
  
  The rare incense burner is unusually carved in high relief on the cover with the san yang. The image of the sheep or goat, 羊 yang, appeared as early as the Han Dynasty as a pun for 祥 xiang meaning auspicious or lucky. By the Qing period, the image of sheep had become heavily associated with 陽 yang, meaning the sun, and the warm, positive or masculine force in Chinese cosmology.
  
  The sheep imagery then developed into three sheep, 三羊 sanyang, often with three boys 三陽 sanyang, as a reference to the favourable arrival of spring, since the phrase 三陽開泰 sanyang kai tai, refers to the period between the winter solstice and the New Year. This was the period when the warm yang energy is emergent, as detailed in the ancient Chinese classic the Yijing, or Book of Changes.