Further reading
Provenance:
Wilfrid Fleisher, Stockholm.
Mr and Mrs Peter S. Scarisbrick, London.
Exhibited:
Stockholm, 1963, The National Museum.
London, 1975, Victoria and Albert Museum.
London, 1976, Eskenazi Limited.
London, 2016, Eskenazi Limited.
Published:
Bo Gyllensvärd, Celadon Jade, Stockholm, 1963, number 129.
Jessica Rawson and John Ayers, Chinese Jade throughout the Ages, Arts Council of Great Britain and the Oriental Ceramic Society, London, 1975, number 196.
Eskenazi Limited, Chinese jades from a private collection, London, 1976, number 9.
Eskenazi Ltd., Early Chinese art from a private collection, London, 2016, catalogue number 7.
Similar example:
Jessica Rawson and John Ayers, Chinese Jade throughout the Ages, Arts Council of Great Britain and the Oriental Ceramic Society, London, 1975, number 195.
This small jade carving is here described as tianlu as opposed to its close relative bixie. Both terms have auspicious associations and describe a fantastic beast that was, in earlier times, ‘shaped like a deer: those with one horn represent the heavenly deer (tianlu), those with two can ward off evil (bixie).’1 By the Tang period, both tianlu and bixie appear to have loosened their connection to their deer-like ancestry and are most commonly represented as a mixture of lion or feline and dragon, sometimes winged and with one or two horns. The present example has one centrally placed horn and therefore seems to qualify as tianlu.
1 Jessica Rawson, Chinese Ornament: the Lotus and the Dragon, London, 1984, page 108.