MASTER OF THE ROCKS SCHOOL, 1740-1850

Details

A CARVED GREEN AND RUSSET JADE SNUFF BOTTLE
MASTER OF THE ROCKS SCHOOL, 1740-1850
The olive-green jade bottle is carved in relief on one side utilizing the russet-brown skin to depict a large sun rising above crashing waves in front of a cliff face with lingzhi growing at the side. The reverse is carved with lingzhi at the base below a bat in flight, both picked-out in the russet skin.
2 ¾ in. (6.9 cm.) high

Provenance

Robert Hall, London, 1979.
The Guo’an Collection, no. 306.
Sotheby’s Hong Kong, 30 October, 2000, lot 617.
Hugh Moss (HK) Ltd., Hong Kong, 2001.
Ruth and Carl Barron Collection, Belmont, Massachusetts, no. 3153.

Exhibited

Boston, International Chinese Snuff Bottle Society Convention, The Barron Collection, 23-26 September 2008.

Special notice

This lot is offered without reserve.

Brought to you by

Andrew Lick

asianartny@christies.com +1 212 636 2180

Lot Essay

The Master of the Rocks School seems to have specialized in carvings from this distinctive material. The School's main output was bottles carved with landscape designs, but many other subjects are recorded, including a few with chi dragon designs, which may have been partly produced for the Court. The quality of carving and the use of material of the present bottle are typical of this School.
A comparable example of the same size and similar use of a large area of dark skin from the Ruth and Carl Barron Collection of Fine Chinese Snuff Bottles: Part I, was sold at Christie’s New York, 16 September 2015, lot 204, and another from the Blanche B. Exstein Collection was sold at Christie’s New York, 21 March 2002, lot 158. For other examples of snuff bottles from the Master of the Rocks School, see Moss, Graham, Tsang, A Treasury of Chinese Snuff Bottles: The Mary and George Bloch Collection, Vol. 1, Hong Kong, 1995, pp. 350-69, nos. 136-41.

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