Skip to main content

This auction has ended. View lot details

You may also be interested in

Own a similar item?

Submit your item online for a free auction estimate.

A BLACK AND WHITE JADE 'GOATHERD AND THREE GOATS' SNUFF BOTTLE Suzhou, 1750-1850 image 1
A BLACK AND WHITE JADE 'GOATHERD AND THREE GOATS' SNUFF BOTTLE Suzhou, 1750-1850 image 2
PROPERTY FROM THE FRANCINE AND BERNARD WALD COLLECTION OF FINE CHINESE SNUFF BOTTLES
Lot 231

A BLACK AND WHITE JADE 'GOATHERD AND THREE GOATS' SNUFF BOTTLE
Suzhou, 1750-1850

17 March 2025, 09:00 EDT
New York

Sold for US$15,360 inc. premium

Own a similar item?

Submit your item online for a free auction estimate.

How to sell

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 specialist

Ask about this lot

A BLACK AND WHITE JADE 'GOATHERD AND THREE GOATS' SNUFF BOTTLE

Suzhou, 1750-1850
Of small, rounded shape, carved in high relief from gray-black inclusions to one side, with an elderly goatherd holding a tall dragon-headed staff before three recumbent goats and a gnarled pine, the reverse carved from the white stone with a twisting pine growing from a craggy pierced rock, below a cylindrical neck with flat rim and small mouth, a simple flat oval base.
1 7/8in (4.7cm) high, stopper

Footnotes

1750-1850 蘇作黑白玉「三羊開泰」鼻煙壺一件

Provenance:
Marsha Vargas, The Oriental Corner, Los Altos, California, March 1987

來源:
Marsha Vargas, The Oriental Corner, Los Altos, 加利福尼亞,1987年3月

For a slightly larger Suzhou black and white jade 'Goatherd' snuff bottle, with reverse color scheme, of white on a black ground, see Sotheby's New York, 16 September 2014, lot 244, but similarly depicting a goatherd resting on a tall staff with three goats at his feet, and like that example, clearly shows the weariness of the elderly goatherd, hunched over and supporting himself against his tall staff.

The goatherd resembles depictions of Su Wu, a Han dynasty statesman, held captive in the North of China who suffered years of servitude herding goats. Despite years of suffering, Su Wu remained loyal to the Han and is upheld as a paragon of loyalty.

For another Suzhou jade bottle making similar use of diagonal black inclusions in the white stone to depict the 'Four Noble Occupations', see Michael C. Hughes, Small Treasures: The Art Institute of Chicago, Chinese Snuff Bottles, Hong Kong, 2015, pp. 64-65, no. 45

Additional information

Bid now on these items