Lot 3960. A magnificent pair of white jade 'boys' table screens, Qianlong period (1736-1795); 9 3/4 in. (24.7 cm.) wide. Estimate On Request. Price realised HKD 15,220,000. © Christie's Images Ltd 2012.  

Each panel is exquisitely carved on either side of the semi-translucent material of mutton-fat tone. The first panel is carved on one side with children engaged in playful pursuits such as playing musical instruments, performing a dragon dance, and setting off fire crackers in a landscape scene detailed with distant courtyard houses and amidst tall trees growing on rocky cliffs. The reverse side is decorated with a dense landscape scene detailed with a deer, grasping in its mouth a spray of lingzhi fungus, and a crane in flight. The other panel is designed with a scene of boys working a threshing machine outside a walled homestead. The reverse side similarly carved with a crane and a deer in landscape, wood stands.

Provenance: Sir John Buchanan Jardine Bt. (1900-1969)
Sold at Sotheby's London, 12 November 1974, lot 36.

Note: Jade table screens of this almost flawless quality and large size are very rare. The process in the selection of the most suited material in order to provide a wider canvas for the conceived design, and the need to limit the number of visible natural flaws in the stone, would have proved challenging to the lapidary. The table screen as an object became a popular decorative device for the Qing palaces and scholar's desks during the 18th century. They were either rendered into a circular or rectangular shape. Instead of the vertical format, such as the white jade table screen carved with a similar boys theme, formerly from the Lady June Horlick Collection and offered at Christie's Hong Kong, 1 June 2011, lot 3602, the present screens are arranged in a horizontal format. A comparable example of this handscroll form is a screen depicting a scholar reading by candle light, in the Qing Court Collection, dated to the Qianlong period, and illustrated in Jadeware (III), The Complete Collection of Treasures of the Palace Museum, Hong Kong, 1995, p. 56, no. 45 (fig. 1). A white jade screen is in situ, and displayed in a treasure cabinet, in the Shufangzhai, 'The Lodge of Fresh Fragrance' (fig. 2).

Invariably the inspirations for designs on table screens were either from existing Court paintings or popular woodblock prints. In this instance, the scene depicting boys at play would have probably been influenced by contemporaneous famille rose ceramics that were produced at the Imperial kilns in Jingdezhen, as exemplified a famille rose Qianlong vase depicting boys performing a dragon dance, illustrated in Porcelain with Cloisonne Enamel Decoration and Famille Rose Decoration, The Complete Collection of Treasures of the Palace Museum, Hong Kong, 1999, p. 138, no. 121 (fig. 3). The second screen was probably derived from a woodblock print such as those illustrating a series of agricultural activities (fig. 4),that were first published in the Kangxi period dated to 1696.