A rare white jade zodiac figure of a goat


QianlongThe finely polished even white stone delicately carved as a zodiac figure of a goat seated cross-legged wearing a long flowing pleated robe, holding a scroll in his left hand, the facial features realistically rendered below a pair of curled horns, his upright tail detailed with incised lines. 5.3cm (2 1/11in) high.
|清乾隆 白玉雕羊生肖像Provenance:A New Jersey collection, purchased in 1977Marchant, LondonExhibited, Published and Illustrated:Marchant, 90th Anniversary Exhibition: Ninety Jades for 90 Years, London, 2015, no.65來源：美國新澤西州私人舊藏，購於1977年倫敦Marchant展覽、出版及著錄：Marchant，《玉器九十，90週年特展》，倫敦，2015年，編號65The present jade figure belongs to a set of twelve zodiac figures, examples of which are known to have been commissioned for the Qianlong emperor. The complete set would have been stored inside a zitan box known as wannian jiazi he, placed around a central rectangular jade box carved with the Daoist qian trigram, a symbol of the Qianlong emperor. See a complete set from the Qing Court Collection, illustrated in The Complete Collection of Treasures of the Palace Museum, Jadeware (III), Hong Kong, 1995, pp.132-133, no.111; another complete is illustrated by R.Kleiner in Chinese Jades from the Collection of Alan and Simone Hartman, Hong Kong, 1996, p.232, no.182; a third complete set from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, is illustrated by D.P.Leidly, W.A.Siu and J.C.Y.Watt, Chinese Decorative Arts, New York, 1997, p.33; and a fourth set is illustrated by Y.Boda in A Romance with Jade from De An Tang Collection, Hong Kong, 2004, pp.134-135, no.76.According to Qian Jiuru in 'Wannian Jiazi he', Forbidden City, vol.5, 1992, p.5, the creation of this group of objects was to commemorate the milestone victory of the Jinchuan suppression, one of the most difficult of the Ten Great Campaigns of the Qianlong reign. It further embodies the Qianlong emperor's inner literati spirit, as the zodiac theme was inspired by the works of Chou Yuan (circa 1247-1326), whose literary work known as Jin Yuan Ji comprised of phrases which deliberately incorporated names of the twelve zodiac animals into individual registers, and was later recorded in the Yongle Encyclopaedia.A related white jade zodiac figure of a rat, 18th/19th century, was sold at Christie's Paris, 12 December 2018, lot 133.白玉質，溫潤潔瑩，圓雕羊首人身像，為十二生肖之未羊。羊角前曲，鬍鬚垂胸，身著寬袍大袖，衣褶以砣輪為之，線條流暢，打磨細膩，不見刀鋒。未羊手持書卷，盤腿而坐，其形象類似圓明園大水法十二生肖之未羊，可比較乾隆年所製《圓明園西洋樓版畫》之《海晏堂西面十 》中未羊的形象。玉雕十二生肖多作於乾隆年間，存世大多為公立博物館及少數私人收藏中，如北京故宮尚存多套此類成套的玉雕十二生肖，放於紫檀盒中，環座圍繞，參見《故宮博物院藏文物珍品全集：玉器（下）》，香港，1995年，頁132-3，編號111。另有一組乾隆白玉十二生肖亦資參考，見R. Kleiner著《Chinese Jades from the Collection of Alan and Simone Hartman》，香港，1996年，頁232，编号182；美國大都會博物館藏完整一套，見D.P.Leidly, W.A.Siu及J.C.Y.Watt著錄，《Chinese Decorative Arts》，紐約，1997年，頁33；另一套於香港著名私人收藏之中，見楊伯達著，《玉緣：德安堂藏玉》，香港，2004年，頁134-5，編號76。錢九如於《萬年甲子盒》論述，乾隆帝十全武功，唯金川戰役難克，此套玉雕十二生肖萬年甲子應為紀念金川之役大捷而造，見《紫禁城》，1992年，第5期，頁5。白玉生肖亦存乾隆帝之文人風骨，依萬年甲子銘文，生肖主題溯至仇遠（1247-1326年）著作《金淵集》，其中章句化用十二生肖名號，後收錄在《永樂大典》之中。另見巴黎佳士得曾售出一件十八/十九世紀白玉雕鼠生肖相，2018年12月12日，拍品編號133。