A large pale green jade 'immortals' mountain, Qing dynasty, Qianlong period

Collection of Stephen Junkunc, III (d. 1978).

The vertical composition of this boulder, which has been dexterously carved in varying levels of relief, cleverly creates a sense of recession and vast space while utilizing the maximum amount of the precious material. In subject it captures an idealized landscape in miniature form, ingeniously incorporating into the design the natural features of the stone. The visual vocabulary on which these miniature landscapes combined many features of the natural world. Moreover, the figures, animals and plants depicted pertained to a system of design sustained by a complex concept of the universe and its auspicious phenomena (see Jessica Rawson, ‘The Auspicious Universe’, China. The Three Emperors 1662-1795, London, 2005, pp 358-361).

Following the Qianlong Emperor's conquest of the northwestern territories, large reserves of jade became available in the territories of Khotan and Yarkand and were sent as tribute to the court. With this sudden abundance of high-quality jade, three-dimensional miniature jade landscapes were first produced in various shapes and sizes. The Qianlong Emperor advocated that jade mountains and carved panels should carry the spirit of paintings by famous past masters. It is recorded that a number of classical paintings from the emperor's own collection were ordered to be reproduced in jade, such as the celebrated painting Travellers in the Mountains, by the eminent Five Dynasties painter Guan Tong (907-960). 

Comparable carvings of mountains inhabited by immortals include one in the National Palace Museum, Taipei, included in the Museum’s exhibition The Refined Taste of the Emperor: Special Exhibition of Archaic and Pictorial Jades of the Ch’ing Court, Taipei, 1997, cat. no. 40; one in the Palace Museum, Beijing, illustrated in The Complete Collection of Treasures of the Palace Museum. Jadeware (III), Hong Kong, 1995, pl. 73; one sold in our Paris rooms, 12th December 2013, lot 100; and a fourth example sold at Christie’s Hong Kong, 27th November 2007, lot 1510.