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Lot Essay
The cicada is a symbol of immortality because it has an unusually long life cycle for an insect. It also became a symbol of extended youth and of happiness on account of its joyous chirping. From the late Neolithic times small nephrite sculptures of this type were popular for burials, and cicadas or cicada designs gradually evolved over the centuries into one of the most ubiquitous of Chinese art symbols. As a result, cicada-form bottles were popular at the Court during the eighteenth century.
See a white nephrite example in the Imperial Collection at Beijing illustrated by Zhu Peichu and Xia Gengqi eds., Biyanhu Shihua [History of Snuff Bottles], pl. 50, and another two illustrated by Moss, Graham, Tsang, A Treasury of Chinese Snuff Bottles, Vol. 1, Jade, nos. 58 and 59, where the latter is similar in its restrained archaism and use of the pebble material. The present lot is unusual due to the carver's use of the russet skin, as the majority of cicada-form jade snuff bottles are entirely in white or off-white nephrite.
Examples of cicada-form snuff bottles also occur in other materials such as porcelain, including one formerly from the Meriem Collection, sold in these rooms, 19 March 2008, lot 245, and another in P. Friedman, Chinese Snuff Bottles from the Pamela R. Lessing Friedman Collection, no. 124; and one in brown crystal, illustrated by R. Kleiner, Chinese Snuff Bottles from the Collection of Mary and George Bloch, no. 138.
See a white nephrite example in the Imperial Collection at Beijing illustrated by Zhu Peichu and Xia Gengqi eds., Biyanhu Shihua [History of Snuff Bottles], pl. 50, and another two illustrated by Moss, Graham, Tsang, A Treasury of Chinese Snuff Bottles, Vol. 1, Jade, nos. 58 and 59, where the latter is similar in its restrained archaism and use of the pebble material. The present lot is unusual due to the carver's use of the russet skin, as the majority of cicada-form jade snuff bottles are entirely in white or off-white nephrite.
Examples of cicada-form snuff bottles also occur in other materials such as porcelain, including one formerly from the Meriem Collection, sold in these rooms, 19 March 2008, lot 245, and another in P. Friedman, Chinese Snuff Bottles from the Pamela R. Lessing Friedman Collection, no. 124; and one in brown crystal, illustrated by R. Kleiner, Chinese Snuff Bottles from the Collection of Mary and George Bloch, no. 138.