A BLUE AND WHITE PORCELAIN SNUFF BOTTLE

Details

A BLUE AND WHITE PORCELAIN SNUFF BOTTLE
1800-1860

The cylindrical bottle painted with a continuous design of seventeen monkeys in a rocky landscape playing on and around a peach tree, the foot with an eighteenth monkey seated alone, stopper
3 3/8 in. (8.55 cm.) high

Provenance

Hugh M. Moss Ltd., 1970

Literature

Moss et. al., The Art of the Chinese Snuff Bottle, The J & J Collection, vol. 1, no. 228
The Art of Chinese Snuff Bottle, Poly Art Museum, Beijing, p. 94

Exhibited

Christie's New York, 1993
Empress Place Museum, Singapore, 1994
Museum fur Kunsthandwerk, Frankfurt, 1996-1997
Percival David Foundation of Chinese Art, London, 1997
Naples Museum of Art, Florida, 2001 - 2002
Portland Museum of Art, Portland, Oregon, 2002
National Museum of History, Taipei, 2002
International Asian Art Fair, Seventh Regiment Armory, New York, 2003
Poly Art Museum, Beijing, 2003

Lot Essay

For another bottle with identical design, see Dennis G. Crow, 'Blue and White Snuff Bottles', Arts of Asia, September-October 1990, p. 104, fig. 13.

A number of symbolic meanings and puns are associated with the monkey as a subject matter. A monkey grasping a peach represents the semi-divine monkey popularized in the novel Journey to the West. It also forms a pun on becoming ennobled and embracing longevity. At another level, it can mean 'May your descendants embrace longevity'. On this bottle, the number eighteen may refer to the Buddhist Luohan.

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