Mythic deer

The surface of this opaque greenish jade with gray veins has been chiseled to create pockmarksand artificially colored in brown to cover infusions in the stone. The mythic deer calmly kneels on three tucked legs, while its left foreleg is bent upward. The head looks back toward the tail. Atop the head is a fungus in relief, and carried in it's the deer's mouth is a large fungus branch, which drapes down over both sides of the animal's back. The deer's underside is rendered with depressions for the hooves and with refined hair on part of the tail. The artisanship is concentrated on the high relief of the deer's back, with open space between the neck, the fungus, and the torso and shallow relief on the outer surface.

The fungus shown here' was described in an eighteenth-century document as the symbol that this immortal creature carried on its head (Liang Shizheng [1700–1800] 1965, vol. 2, chap. 11, pp. 33–36). The posture—reclining on three tucked legs—is a special characteristic of this tradition.