This horse depicts the native Chinese pony and is superbly and naturalistically worked with regard to anatomy, musculature and details. The entire body is softly polished imparting a gentle glow to the stone. This horse belongs to a small group of fairly large-sized jade figural representations of buffaloes and horses, now universally dated between 1600 and 1700. They are thought to have been originally located in various buildings within the Forbidden City and were later removed to the Summer Palace under an edict by the Qianlong emperor (r. 1735-1795). All these works of jade were taken from the Summer Palace during the xenophobic Boxer Uprising in 1910 and none of the original set remains in China today.