11.5cm. （4 1/2 in.） long

Provenance
The Collection of Raymond and Frances Bushell，acquired in the early 1990s

Lustrous，translucent and delicate white jade with greyish-white and brownish suffusions. The pigs are carved in rectangular shapes in a recumbent posture，and represented by simple and fluent cutting lines to show their forms and distinctive features. The flat and straight cutting lines are similar to the cuts produced by using an axe and such a carving technique is known as the typical “Han eight cuts”. It is one of the techniques employed by manipulating the cutting emery wheel and using jade-dissolving sands to cut the lines with one side deeper and the other side shallower to create a strong sense of perspective and sculptural dimensionality. The surfaces of the pigs are finely polished with shiny glare and there is a perforation respectively on the lower jaw and tail to facilitate holding firmly in the hands of the deceased. Jade pigs had the symbolic meaning that the bearer would enjoy wealth.

A pair of jade pigs of this type，illustrated by S. Jenyns in Chinese Archaic Jades in the British Museum，London，1951，pl. XXXII（top），have a block-like appearance，and are not as well detailed as the present pair，but exhibit the same kind of opaque alteration，and are described，p. xxxvi，as of light green and white color. Another pair of similar Han jade pigs，from the Grenville L. Winthrop Collection，is illustrated by M. Loehr in Ancient Chinese Jades，Cambridge，Massachusetts，1975，p. 387，no. 555. An identical example one was sold at Christie’s，New York，19th March 2015，lot 588，“The Collection of Robert Hatfield Ellsworth，Part III’. A similar pair of pale brownish-green jade carvings of pigs was sold at Bonham’s Hong Kong，'The Sze Yuan Tang Collection of Chinese Jade'，5th April，2016，lot 31

Price estimate:
HKD: 20,000-30,000
USD: 2,580-3,870

Auction Result:
HKD: 495,600