The figure realistically modelled, the body painted with brown, white and black enamels. In Chinese culture, the deer is believed to live to a very great age, and it is thus a symbol long life. It is said to be the only animal able to find the sacred plant of immortality.

COMPARABLE EXAMPLES: See two related deer from the collection of the Hon. Mrs Neillie Ionides, attributed to the Kangxi period, one sold Sotheby’s, 2 July 1963, lot 56; the other, illustrated in Victor Rienaecker, 'Fantasies of Chinese Ceramic art', Country Life Annual, 1956, fig. 1 The dating of this lot is consistent with the result of a thermoluminescence test, Oxford authentication Ltd., no. P121m81