FOUR PORCELAIN SNUFF BOTTLES

1770-1880

Details

FOUR PORCELAIN SNUFF BOTTLES
1770-1880
The first is of baluster form and is finely engraved through the pinkish-red enamel with a branch of plum blossom and an inscription incorporating a date corresponding to 1864. The second, 1810-1860, is of tapering ovoid form and is painted with a wide band of shou characters in iron red below a band of six iron-red bats in flight reserved on a yellow ground. The origial stopper decorated en suite. The third, 1770-1880, is a provincial pottery bottle of rounded, rectangular form and is molded in high relief with scenes of a rooster amongst chicks on one side and a rooster with a goat on the reverse. The design is picked out in bright turquoise, bluish-black, and red glazes. The fourth, 1820-1880, is of baluster form decorated with alternating underglaze-blue fu and shou characters below the shoulder covered in underglaze blue and above the café -au-lait glaze encircling the base. The base is decorated with a shou character in underglaze blue.
2 5/16, 2¼, 3, and 2 3/8 in. (5.9, 5.5, 7.6, and 6 cm.) high, porcelain, carnelian, and gilt metal stoppers, two bone spoons (4)

Provenance

Pinkish-red enameled bottle: Sotheby's New York, 17 March 1997, lot 441.
Bottle with iron-red characters: Y.F. Yang, Hong Kong, 1981.
Pottery bottle: Bob Stevens Collection (Part III); Sotheby Parke Bernet New York, 25 June 1981, lot 77.
Café-au-lait bottle: Rare Art, Inc., New York, 1982.

Literature

Ovoid bottle with iron-red characters: Journal of the International Chinese Snuff Bottle Society, Baltimore, Winter 1996, front cover.
Pottery bottle: Bob Stevens, The Collector's Book of Snuff Bottles, New York, 1980, p. 102, no. 340.

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Lot Essay

The first bottle bears a cyclical date corresponding to July 1864 and a dedication reading Chunyan renxiong zhengzhi yawan ('For respected brother Chunyan's refined enjoyment and correction'), and is signed Fan Lutao ke ('Engraved by Fan Lutao'). While there is no record of who Fan Lutao was, the bottle is dedicated as a presentation to Chunyan, who was most likely Cai Guolin (1843-1909), Zi Yuping Hao Chunyan, from Tainan. He passed the provincial imperial examination in 1882 and became a Juren. He came in third in the triennial provincial service exam in 1890, and was appointed to a position in the National History Department, returning to Taiwan to teach in two colleges. Also noteworthy is the unusual technique of decoration, executed by engraving through the enamel to reveal the underlying white glaze. This technique is rarely used for inscriptions and dates back to the early Qianlong period and was a developed by Tang Ying.
The second bottle with iron-red shou characters is apparently unique in its color and design, and retains its original stopper.

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