1730-1850

This exquisite bottle belongs to a very small group of early white jade snuff bottles characterized by sculptural elegance and painstaking hollowing. The J & J Collection included a few other equally rare white-jade animal-form snuff bottles from this group, illustrated in H. Moss et al., The Art of the Chinese Snuff Bottle, The J & J Collection, vol. I, New York, 1993, including a bear (p. 34, no. 1 and sold at Christie’s Hong Kong, 25 April 2004, lot 853, now in The Water, Pine and Stone Retreat Collection of Snuff Bottles, e-yaji.com, Part 1, p.8, no. 31.3.662), a bear with cub (pp. 34-5, no. 2), a cat (pp. 37-8, no. 3) and a mythical beast, bixie (pp. 41-2, no. 5).

While the squirrel and grapevine design became a popular subject of porcelain snuff bottles during the second half of the Qing dynasty, it is not known whether a jade squirrel-form bottle was the inspiration for the porcelain versions, or vice versa. What is exceptionally rare about the present bottle is the recessed oval foot which orients the bottle horizontally and also acts as a naturalistic feature of a knot hole in the grape branch. This ingenious design appears to be unique within this small group of white jade animals, which generally rest upon their own naturalistic features, such as the paws, the belly or the tail.

For other white jade animal-form bottles from this group from the Mary and George Bloch Collection see Moss, Graham, Tsang, A Treasury of Chinese Snuff Bottles: The Mary and George Bloch Collection, vol. 1, Hong Kong, 1996, pp. 108-23, nos. 42-48, which includes a white jade beast, no. 46, that was subsequently sold in Snuff Bottles from the Mary & George Bloch Collection: Part VII; Sotheby's Hong Kong, 26 November 2013, lot 69, now in The Water, Pine and Stone Retreat Collection of Snuff Bottles, no. 21.3.949.