Jade water droppers of this type include one in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, published in Ming Wilson, Chinese Jades, London, 2004, pl. 65; one sold in our London rooms, 13th/14th November, lot 113; another sold in these rooms, 8th April 2010, lot 1915; and a fourth example sold at Christie’s New York, 20th September 2005, lot 14. 

The 16th-century writer Gao Lian recorded a white jade water dropper in the form of abixie made by the celebrated carver Lu Zigang of Suzhou. Described as archaic in design with a hollow body and inlaid with turquoise, water droppers such as the present piece were probably inspired by Lu’s vessel (see James C.S. Lin, The Immortal Stone. Chinese Jades from the Neolithic Period to the Twentieth Century, Cambridge, 2009, p. 57).