BOY ASTRIDE A QILIN (ONE OF TWO)
Creator(s): Unknown
On view in: Pavilion Hallway
About this object
One of two mirror-image figures carved from light grayish-green jade with scattered touches of dark green, this sculpture shows a boy wearing a ruyi necklace and holding a ruyi sceptre in his proper left hand and a flowering lotus stem in his other astride a saddled qilin, or a composite mythical beast with the head of a dragon and the scales of a carp on the body and hooves of a deer. The qilin stands on carved jade rockwork and the sculpture rests on a teak base carved with openwork leaves. The qilin delivers baby boys much like the western stork, and this figure represents a wish for male offspring, with the ruyi translating as "as you wish" and the lotus branch, or lian, a homophone for "continuous." Thus, the rebus is "as you wish, continuous generations of sons," an auspicious subject in Chinese art.
- Object name:
- BOY ASTRIDE A QILIN (ONE OF TWO)
- Made from:
- Jade
- Made in:
- China
- Date made:
- Mid 19th c.-Early 20th c.
- Size:
- 15.9 x 11.4 cm (6 1/4 x 4 1/2 in.)
Detailed information for this item
- Catalog number:
- 62.114.2
- Class:
- HARDSTONE
- Signature marks:
- Credit line:
- Bequest of Marjorie Merriweather Post, 1973