The grinning cat is curled to its left with an oval aperture in its back and holes in its eyes. It is enamelled on the biscuit (unglazed porcelain) in a very dark aubergine with splashed fur markings.

The Jesuit Père d’Entrecolles when he visited Jingdezhen in 1712, described one of these as “a cat painted in natural colours in the head of which they placed a small lamp so that its flame lit up the eyes; and they assured me that the rats were frightened away during the night.” Cat night light holders exist in several public collections. They were in slightly different form first produced towards the end of the Ming Dynasty.

Major Duberly writes: ‘The cat is the guardian of silkworms and was worshipped by prehistoric farmers.” He goes on with the story of the Empress Wu murdering the Empress Dowager, who said she would return as a cat.

Literature: Anthony du Boulay, The Duberly Collection of Chinese Art at Winchester College (Winchester, 2019), p. 74

Provenance: Bequeathed as part of the Duberly Collection, 1978; purchased by Major Montagu and Lady Eileen Duberly from S.L. Moss, 23 April 1955 (£55); formerly in the collection of Mrs Mair Smith.

Location: Treasury, Gallery 2