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Lot Essay
Yixing, in Jiangsu province to the west of Shanghai, is associated with a distinctive stoneware called "purple clay." The unglazed, fired clay is usually purplish-brown, but its color can vary from pale beige to brown to green. Yixing ware has been produced for nearly a thousand years in the same place, but came to aesthetic prominence only in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries (during the late Ming dynasty), when the scholar class found it a suitable material for teapots and other table articles.
The present bottle appears to be from the same enamel workshop as a small group in the Bloch collection attributed to "The Jagged Line Master" (see Moss, Graham, Tsang, A Treasury of Chinese Snuff Bottles, The Mary and George Bloch Collection, Vol. 6, Part 3, Hong Kong, 2008, pp. 959-964, nos. 1457-1459). These bottles all exhibit similar compositions, with thick black outlines and jagged black lines as details. The present example, decorated solely in black on the white ground, is unusual within the group.
The faceted form of the present bottle was no doubt influenced by contemporary faceted vessels that were being produced at the Palace workshops.
The present bottle appears to be from the same enamel workshop as a small group in the Bloch collection attributed to "The Jagged Line Master" (see Moss, Graham, Tsang, A Treasury of Chinese Snuff Bottles, The Mary and George Bloch Collection, Vol. 6, Part 3, Hong Kong, 2008, pp. 959-964, nos. 1457-1459). These bottles all exhibit similar compositions, with thick black outlines and jagged black lines as details. The present example, decorated solely in black on the white ground, is unusual within the group.
The faceted form of the present bottle was no doubt influenced by contemporary faceted vessels that were being produced at the Palace workshops.