Two Chinese hardstone square seals, flecked in green

Two Chinese hardstone square seals, flecked in green and white, the tops carved with chilong and key-fret design and one seal with the signs of the zodiac and the other carved as nine calligraphy squares, each 7.5cm x 7.5cm Provenance: Collected in the 1930's by Lieutenant-Commander Ninian Scott-Elliot, 1911-1998 and by descent. After an education at Eton, Scott-Elliot joined the Royal Navy and was soon serving on gunboats patrolling the Upper Yangtze River. He won a distinguished Service Cross as well as being mentioned in Dispatches when serving in the Royal Navy in the Second World War. Subsequently he settled on an island in the Solomon group where he developed a large estate and behaved like a benevolent nineteenth-century laird.