Each finely modeled in the round with steep, craggy cliffs glazed a dark brown, its sides punctuated with gnarled pines, pagodas, pavilions and staircases, its base applied with the entrance to a temple
17¹⁄₄ in. (43.8 cm.) high

Anonymous sale; Sotheby's, Monaco, 27 June 1984, lot 3508.
With Cohen & Cohen, London.

M. Cohen and W. Motley, Mandarin and Menagerie: Chinese and Japanese Export Ceramic Figures, Reigate, 2008, p. 62, cat. no. 1.9.

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Lot Essay

These miniature mountains evoke the sacred dwellings of immortals, taihu rocks and the blending of nature with human architecture idealized in historic Chinese garden design. The present pair were perhaps intended as garden ornaments or objects for scholarly contemplation. A very similar example, modeled with diminutive figures among its architectural features, is in the collection of the Asian Art Society in the Netherlands and has been on loan to the Rijksmuseum since 1972, illustrated in C. J. A. Jörg, Chinese Ceramics in the Collection of the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam: the Ming and Qing Dynasties, London, 1997, p. 185, cat. no. 206. A further similar example, also modeled with figures, was sold at Christie's, New York, 30 March 2005, lot 383.