1-234-170 - The Museum of East Asian Art/Heritage Images

Jade juggler, Qing dynasty, China, late 18th-early 19th century. A white jade male juggler pretending to have a woman on his back. One of the most common acts performed by jugglers in villages and towns all over China in the Qing dynasty involved the juggler pretending to have a woman on his back. That figure was a ventriloquist's dummy and the denoument of the act was to reveal this. In the meantime the two appeared to move in unison as if really two people.