Description

China Qing Period – Miniature Medical Doctor Doll

Museal Artifact – Nephrite Jade Diagnostic Doctor Doll

CHINA Qing Period (ca 18th C)

Vintage Antique handcarved medical statue

Light green nephrite jade depicting a nude lying lady

Specifications

✓ Size: 132 x 42 x 19 mm
✓ Comes from a private collection
✓ With documentation + invoice from the US Auction House (Gallery)
✓ Excellent condition – has been on glass display

Information on Chinese medical doll statues

Chinese diagnostic doctor dolls mostly depict a reclining woman, usually naked. Though most dolls were carved out of ivory, they could also be sculpted of jade, amber, bronze, wood, or even lapis lazuli. Howard Dittrick notes the dolls all strike the same pose: propped up on the left arm, with the other draped across the body. Carvers did distinguish adult women, with hair tied up in a bun, from girls with braids or twin ponytails. Early carvings also often depict Chinese women with shrunken lotus feet, a pretty term for the painful and eroticized practice of footbinding.

In the final centuries of China’s Qing Dynasty, these intricately carved medicine dolls were an ailing woman’s only option, writes medical historian Howard Dittrick in his 1952 paper in the Bulletin of the History of Medicine, “Chinese Medicine Dolls.” From the 1300s to the late 19th century, China’s Ming and Qing Dynasties had ushered in a cult of chastity that made it impossible for a doctor to physically examine a female patient, or for her to undress before him. And at the time, China only allowed men to be doctors. In 1879, the Canton Missionary Hospital became the first medical institution to admit women to their medical class, according to a Columbia University dissertation on Chinese medical care for women in the late-19th and early-20th centuries, by Shing-ting Lin. This decision was made not out of some feminist ideal, but rather in reaction to the belief that male physicians should not be touching female patients.

Upper-class women might bring their own beautiful, customized dolls to doctors, whereas poorer women had to make do with the doctor’s own, more rudimentary, model. The more luxurious dolls reclined on miniature couches, some of which even featured silk cushions or embroidered throws. To remove the final layer of interpersonal contact, wealthier ladies simply marked the afflicted parts of the doll with India ink or charcoal, and then sent the doll to the doctor via messenger.

The physicians of late imperial China saw no issue with diagnosing and treating patients on the basis of pointing and words alone (or even less). In fact, it was close to the primary practice at the time for male patients as well (though men had no issues with disrobing before a doctor), as scholarly doctors found physical contact to be beneath them, writes Shing-ting Lin. Unsurprisingly, the smooth, polished surfaces of an ivory, jade and any other gemstone doll proved insufficient for certain female medical concerns. Midwives and other lower-class female workers would have had to take charge of anything gynecological or obstetric, such as period management or childbirth.

Information on nephrite jade

Nephrite and jadeite were used from prehistoric periods for hardstone carving. Jadeite has about the same hardness as quartz. Nephrite is slightly softer, but is tougher (more resistant to breakage) than jadeite. It was not until the 19th century that a French mineralogist, Alexis Damour (1808-1902), determined that “jade” was in fact two different minerals. Nephrite can be found in a creamy white form (known in China as “mutton fat” jade) as well as in a variety of green colours, whereas jadeite shows more colour variations, including blue, lavender-mauve, pink, and emerald-green colours.