Property from the De An Tang CollectionA rare set of twelve pale celadon jade zodiac figures,Qing dynasty, 18th century 德安堂藏玉清十八世紀 青白玉十二生肖一套wood standsh. 5.7 to 6.1 cm拍品专文: Jade zodiac figures of this type are known to have been produced under the direct commission of the Qianlong emperor. Originally stored inside a box known as wannian jiazi he (jiazi cyclical year box of ten thousand years), the figures were placed around a central rectangular jade box carved with the Daoist qian trigram, a symbol of the Qianlong Emperor, thus they appear to have represented celestial guardians protecting the emperor in all directions. According to the Archive of the Imperial Workshop, on the 21st day of the 5th month of the 48th year of Qianlong reign (1783), a complete set of twelve white jade zodiac figures and their boxes were delivered to the imperial court from Suzhou, all of which was placed in Maoqindian (Hall of Merit and Diligence) on the 10th day of the 12th month of the same year.The creation of this group of objects was to commemorate the milestone victory of the Jinchuan suppression, the most difficult of the Ten Great Campaigns of the Qianlong period. It also embodies the Emperor's inner literati spirit, as the zodiac theme, according to the poetic inscription on the wannian jiazi, was inspired by the works of talented Chou Yuan (c. 1247-1326), whose Jin Yuan Ji comprised of phrases that deliberately incorporated names of the twelve zodiac animals into individual registers and was recorded in Yongle Dadian [Yongle encyclopaedia], for a detailed discussion on this subject, see Qian Jiuru, 'Wannian Jiazi he', in Forbidden City, 1992, no. 5, p. 5.Complete sets of white jade twelve zodiac figures are held in important museums and private collections. See a set carved from pale celadon jade, in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, accession no. 02.18.730a-I. Another set from the collection of Alan and Simone Hartman, illustrated in Robert Kleiner, Chinese Jades from the Collection of Alan and Simone Hartman, Hong Kong, 1996, pl. 111, and sold at Christie's Hong Kong, 28th November 2006, lot 1416. See also a set of similar figures, but smaller in size, from the Qing Court collection and still in Beijing, illustrated in The Complete Collection of Treasures of the Palace Museum. Jade Ware (III), Hong Kong, 1995, pl. 111.专文: A Romance with Jade: From the De An Tang Collection, Yongshougong, Palace Museum, Beijing, 2004, cat. no. 76.《玉緣：德安堂藏玉》，永壽宮，故宮博物院，北京，2004年，編號76