I don't know why goats/rams/sheep/lamb are considered lucky by the Chinese but this belief has been passed down through generations. There's a Chinese saying san yang kai tai or 3 goats start a fortune. To ring in the Year of the Goat 2015 then, I will show some of my goat collectibles especially in groups of three like the picture below.
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| san yang kai tai or 3 goats a fortune make. |
Below are another 3 jade goat mascots of good luck for 2015. These 3 are pendants - the one on the left has the money or coin symbol on the reverse and must have been made to commemorate the goat year in a previous cycle.
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| Goat pendants |
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| Reverse has double coins to double the luck for year of goat. |
Next is an interesting goat bead. It is pierced through the body and intended to be a dangle. This serious looking goat also has a beard....so that's where the term goatee comes from :)
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| goatee comes from goat's beard ! |
Heng has contributed a couple more goats/rams carved from serpentine from his collection. Looks like a mother and child pair.
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| Ram or goat ? |
2015 is the year of the Wooden Goat but as I have no wooden goats to show I'll make do with a pair of vintage metal lambs which came from Hilltribes of Thailand.
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| bleat! bleat1 |
Rummaging among my collectibles looking for goats to display, I retrieved this long forgotten porcelain goat/sheep purportedly from Song dynasty (960-1279AD). Of yin qing glaze, it is large but roughly potted. Guess it could make nice mutton soup for Song folks :)
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| Can make a nice mutton soup! |
Another quirky pair is this wool on rice paper picture of a nanny goat and a billy goat nibbling grass beneath cherry or prunus blossoms. Using wool to make a picture of a goat is quite appropriate and I must say the goats wear their wool well. I am not sure whether its pure lamb's wool or even maybe silk threads imitating wool. I bought the picture at a garage sale more than thirty years ago. It was already framed and old at the time of purchase, so I reckon the vintage to be at least 80 years.
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| Nanny goat and billy goat. |
Lastly here is the handmade lamb's work that I stitched more than 20 years ago (see date 1988 on cross stich)
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| Little lamb who made thee? |
To end on a cheerful note and add the obligatory CNY red , (so far missing from this post) is this greeting for the new year.
Wishing All Collectors Goat Luck for 2015
Tian Tian Xi Xi Yang Yang !
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| Tian tian xi xi yang yang |
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