A pale celadon jade figure of an immortal, Qing dynasty, Qianlong period | 清乾隆 青白玉仙人立像

Property from the Collection of Colonel Tom Hall
A pale celadon jade figure of an immortal
Qing dynasty, Qianlong period

wood stand
(2)
Height 10 cm, 4 in.
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Collection du Colonel Tom Hall (1928-2022)
Statuette d'un immortel en jade céladon pâle, dynastie Qing, époque Qianlong
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Tom Hall上校 (1928-2022) 珍藏
清乾隆 青白玉仙人立像

Condition Report:
Some nicks to the extremities overall. There is a small bruise to the edge of the flower basket. The base is drilled.
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通體邊角處見少許細微磕痕。花籃邊沿帶一小挫傷。底見一鑽孔。

Catalogue Note:
Colonel Tom Hall (1928-2022) was Lieutenant of the Gentlemen at Arms, the sovereign’s ceremonial bodyguard, and an entrepreneur in the field of international language schools. He also played a prominent role in the development of the French Alpine resort of Méribel as a favoured destination for British skiers. As a young officer of the 11th Hussars, the cavalry regiment he would go on to command, Hall had skied for the Army in the early 1950s. He first visited Méribel in 1962 with an introduction to Major Peter Lindsay, the British pioneer who had spotted the potential of the slopes above the commune of Les Allues in the Savoie mountains in the 1930s and returned after the war to develop lifts and accommodation around the Méribel hamlet. Hall commissioned a family chalet beside the piste and in 1967 joined the board of the resort’s operating company, Méribel Alpina – succeeding Lindsay (who died in 1971) as a British voice in its affairs. Over the following three decades, he was engaged with the town’s leaders in a strategy which added more hotels and links across the vast Trois Vallées ski area while seeking to attract year-round visitors – and conserving a special Savoyard charm, to which a cohort of early British chalet-owners added a distinctive patina of Englishness. When Méribel hosted part of the 1992 Albertville Winter Olympics, Hall enlisted as a uniformed volunteer to look after visiting dignitaries.

Thomas Armitage Hall was born on April 13 1928, the only child of Athelstan “Johnny” Hall and his wife Nancy, née Dyson – and a great-grandson of a Herefordshire miller who emigrated to Australia in the 1850s. After returning to England, the family acquired the Cricket St Thomas estate in Somerset — later the setting for the television comedy To The Manor Born — where Tom spent much of his childhood. Educated at Heatherdown prep school and Eton, he first skied with his parents at Wengen in Switzerland in 1938.

Commissioned into the 11th Hussars in 1947, Hall joined an armoured-car squadron in Berlin and was posted in 1952. He also served in Malaya during the Emergency as escort troop commander and extra ADC to the High Commissioner, General Sir Gerald Templer. Next, under the auspices of the British Council, Hall ventured to Japan to explore the possibility of launching English language schools there as a business. In partnership with a specialist teacher, John Haycraft, a contract was secured to train guides for the forthcoming World Expo 70 in Osaka, and in due course International Language Centres (ILC) were also established in Tokyo, Nagoya and Kobe. More schools followed in Paris, Rome, Bangkok and the Middle East as the business grew to employ some 200 teachers before its sale in 1988.

Hall was asked by the Foreign Office in 1983 to take Prince (now Emperor) Naruhito of Japan under his wing. In preparation for a post-graduate studentship at Merton College, Oxford, the prince spent three months at Chiselhampton improving his English, playing tennis and attending local fêtes; he also skied with the family in Méribel.

The passion for Jades started in the Hall family with Tom's uncle, Harold Wesley Hall (1888-1974), who acquired several Chinese jades from John Sparks Ltd and Spink and Son Ltd, in London, in the 1960s. Harold Wesley eventually left his collection to his nephew Tom, amongst them the beautiful celadon jade 'marriage' bowl, lot 13 in this sale, and the large spinach-green brushpot, lot 21.

Appointed OBE in 1966 and CVO on retirement from the Gentlemen at Arms, Colonel Tom Hall was high sheriff of Oxfordshire in 1981-2. He skied elegantly until his eightieth year and made his last visit to Méribel this summer, sixty years after his first.

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Tom Hall上校（1928-2022年）生前為英君主禮儀衛隊──「皇家親衛兵和武裝紳士榮譽衛隊」中尉，亦為多所國際語言學校之創辦者。

Hall上校對法國阿爾卑斯山度假聖地梅里貝勒之發展，亦扮演重要前鋒角色。此鎮備受英國滑雪愛好者青睞。1950年代早期，Hall為英國陸軍第11阿爾伯特親王屬驃騎兵團年輕軍官（後升任了該部隊指揮官），在軍中滑雪效力。在英國陸軍少校Peter Lindsay引介之下，Hall於1962年首次造訪梅里貝勒。早於1930年代，Lindsay率先注意法國薩華山區萊薩呂市鎮附近坡道的滑雪潛力，其餘二戰後重遊此地，在梅里貝勒鎮週邊興建纜車及住宿。Hall於1967年加入該度假勝地的運營公司Méribel...