A LARGE CHINESE SOAPSTONE FIGURE OF SHOULAO

A LARGE CHINESE SOAPSTONE FIGURE OF SHOULAO
17TH CENTURY

The God of Longevity with his distinctive domed forehead presented standing with his right arm raised to hold a branch of peaches over his shoulders, his face with a pensive expression and turned slightly to the right, wearing a robe decorated with shou characters, fruiting peach branches and borders of scrolling flowers against a wave ground, all with traces of polychromy, raised on a base carved as Taihu rockwork with a small recumbent deer to the right of the figure, 30.2cm, 41.2cm overall.

Provenance: from an English private collection, Sussex.

Cf. J C S Lin, The Immortal Stone, Chinese Jades from the Neolithic Period to the Twentieth Century, p.129, for a related soapstone figure.

Shoulao is revered in Chinese culture as one of the three Star Gods, or fulushou, along with Fu, the God of Happiness, and Lu, the God of Wealth. Also known as Nanji Laoren, or Old Man of the South Pole, he is associated with the star of the South Pole in Chinese astronomy and is believed to control the life span of mortals. As such, he is the God of Longevity and often associated with a number of symbols alluding to long life, including crane, lingzhi, deer and peaches. Typically, he is presented with his large forehead in clear view and holding a ruyi-sceptre, substituted in the example offered here with a fruiting branch of peaches. For a related soapstone figure of Shoulao dated to the 17th/18th century, wearing a similar robe of peach sprays and shou characters tied with a long cord, see Christie's New York, 26 March 2010, Lot 1146.

十七世紀 壽山石雕壽老像
來源：英國薩塞克斯郡收藏。