A CHINESE PALE CELADON JADE CARVING OF A BOY RIDING AN ELEPHANT

QING DYNASTY OR EARLIER

The stocky elephant depicted standing four-square with its head slightly turned to the right, the smiling boy holds a vase as he kneels upon the animal's back, with a bird perching next to the child, the stone with some light russet markings, together with a wood stand with a label for S Marchant & Son, 70th Anniversary Exhibition of Post-Archaic Chinese Jades, 1995, no.79, 5.2cm. (2)

Provenance: formerly an English private collection; purchased from Marchant on 22nd July 1996.

Illustrated: S Marchant & Son, Seventieth Anniversary Exhibition of Post-Archaic Chinese Jades, 1995, p.60, no.79.

Cf. Ip Yee, Chinese Jade Carving, no.153 for an elephant of similar style from the collection of Mr and Mrs P Chu; see also Marchant, 85th Anniversary Exhibition of Chinese Jades from Tang to Qing, pp.110-111, no.82 for another jade carving with the same iconography formerly in the Rothschild family collection.