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Lot Essay
Yixing in Jiangsu province gives its name to this distinctive stoneware. In production for nearly a thousand years in the same place, Yixing ware only came into artistic prominence in the later Ming dynasty, when it was adopted by the scholar class as a suitable material for teapots and thence for other items for the scholar's studio. Slip-decorated snuff bottles constitute a considerable portion of the known output. Slip is simply liquid clay which can be applied like a thick paint or used for gluing segments together.
It would appear that the Daoguang Emperor and his consort were fond of doves and small dogs, respectively, as subjects of paired doves and Pekinese dogs became popular during this period. Paired doves, like other paired creatures, suggest conjugal bliss. Paired doves and dogs appear often on porcelain wares of the period, as can be seen on a Daoguang-marked enameled porcelain bottle in the Palace Museum, Beijing, illustrated in Snuff Bottles-The Complete Collection of Treasures of the Palace Museum, p. 227, no. 348.
Other Yixing bottles of this design include two illustrated by B. Stevens, The Collector's Book of Snuff Bottles, New York, 1976, nos. 334 and 336, and one illustrated by R. Kleiner, Chinese Snuff Bottles in the Collection of Mary and George Bloch, London, 1995, p. 369, no. 241. A Yixing bottle in this series, with enameled decoration, but decorated with landscape scenes set within a blue-enameled surround, and impressed with a cyclical date, jiyu (1849), is illustrated in An Imperial Qing Tradition, Chinese Snuff Bottles from the Collections of Humphrey K. F. Hui and Christopher C. H. Sin, Hong Kong, 1994, no. 46.
It would appear that the Daoguang Emperor and his consort were fond of doves and small dogs, respectively, as subjects of paired doves and Pekinese dogs became popular during this period. Paired doves, like other paired creatures, suggest conjugal bliss. Paired doves and dogs appear often on porcelain wares of the period, as can be seen on a Daoguang-marked enameled porcelain bottle in the Palace Museum, Beijing, illustrated in Snuff Bottles-The Complete Collection of Treasures of the Palace Museum, p. 227, no. 348.
Other Yixing bottles of this design include two illustrated by B. Stevens, The Collector's Book of Snuff Bottles, New York, 1976, nos. 334 and 336, and one illustrated by R. Kleiner, Chinese Snuff Bottles in the Collection of Mary and George Bloch, London, 1995, p. 369, no. 241. A Yixing bottle in this series, with enameled decoration, but decorated with landscape scenes set within a blue-enameled surround, and impressed with a cyclical date, jiyu (1849), is illustrated in An Imperial Qing Tradition, Chinese Snuff Bottles from the Collections of Humphrey K. F. Hui and Christopher C. H. Sin, Hong Kong, 1994, no. 46.