A MASSIVE CHINESE BLACK AND CELADON JADE 'YINGXIONG' GROUP

QING DYNASTY

The stone skilfully worked with a single-horned mythical beast carved from the black section of the stone whilst an eagle is predominantly picked out in celadon, both creatures stand side by side gazing backwards with well-defined bulging eyes, the eagle with its left leg raised and talons tightly clasped, with an old paper label to the shoulder of the lion-like beast, all raised on a rocky platform, the black and celadon areas of the stone both with white and russet markings, 34cm, 10kg.

The imagery depicted is an interpretation of the motif of an eagle, ying, and a bear, xiong, which together form the word yingxiong, homophone for 'hero'. The theme of an eagle and bear first appeared on Western Han dynasty bronze 'champion' vases. This developed throughout later periods into more stylised representations where the bear is often rendered as a mythical beast resembling a lion and the eagle is sometimes portrayed as a phoenix.

Provenance: from the collection of Reverend Victor Farmer (1898-1977) and thence by descent. Whilst Farmer sold several Chinese ceramics at Sotheby's in 1961, he was primarily a collector of Chinese hardstones and other works of art. Much of his collection was also sold at Phillips on 15th February 1978.

Cf. A Forsyth and B McElney, Jades from China, p.292, no.292 for a Ming dynasty jade carving of an eagle perched on a lion-like mythical animal in the collection of The Museum of East Asian Art, Bath; see also Sotheby's Hong Kong, 1st December 2016, lot 172 for another Ming piece with a comparable subject matter and lot 203 for a related small 17th/18th century yellow jade 'yingxiong' carving depicting a bird of prey with a similarly rendered mythical beast.