This auction has ended. View lot details
You may also be interested in
A spinach jade brushwasher 18th century
HK$110,000 - HK$120,000
Looking for a similar item?
Our Chinese Ceramics & Works of Art specialists can help you find a similar item at an auction or via a private sale.
Find your local specialistA spinach jade brushwasher
Fashioned as a tied bunch of lotus and water reeds, the largest lotus leaf forming the receptacle, the interior accented with a crab, prawn, snail and frog, and a bug adorning the edge, the translucent deep green stone mottled with opaque pale green inclusions and black spots, the fitted wood stand carved en suite.
17cm (6¾in) long. (2).
Footnotes
For a similar example see Wan, Wang and Lu, Daily Life in the Forbidden City, New York, 1988, fig. 207, p. 151.
This subject matter was also popular in ivory and rhinoceros horn. For an ivory example in the Lushan Museum, see Liu, Lushun Museum, Beijing, 2004, p. 154.
The reason for the popularity of this motif is due to the fact that an old name in Chinese for crab was jia, a reference to the creature's shell, and the word for lotus is lian. Together, the crab and lotus formed the rebus lian ke jia di, meaning "first place in consecutive examinations". The lotus is also called hehua, and the common name for crab, xie, also combines to form the phrase hexia which means "harmony".
十八世紀 碧玉連科甲第葉形筆洗
Saleroom notices
Estimate should read: HK$110,000-120,000














