This is one of the masterpieces of Chinese amber snuff bottles. The material is quite extraordinary in its brilliance and richness of colour which ranges from dark, translucent coppery-gold to vibrant, opaque golden-yellow. The artist has created a bottle of delightful shape, with its gently bulging rectangular body finely balanced by the sloping shoulders and elegantly flared neck, and superbly enhanced by the shaping of the panels.

The layout of the four symbolic flora known as 'Four Gentlemen' is also beautifully disposed, each within its individual panel using to great effect the broad bands of different colour in the material.

An almost identical bottle, but with a less flared neck, was formerly with Yamanaka & Co. and was sold at the American Art Association, Anderson Galleries Inc. auction of 1929, lot 302. The two can only have come from the same hand; they follow exactly the same design with only slight variation in certain angles of the pine and its branches and vines.