POSSIBLY IMPERIAL, ATTRIBUTED TO THE PALACE WORKSHOPS, BEIJING, 1730-1820

The present bottle belongs to a group of early lacquer bottles that appears to be largely imperial and date from the Qianlong period. The predominant color used on this group was cinnabar red, but occasionally green or black were used as contrasts. In The Art of the Chinese Snuff Bottle, The J & J Collection, Vol. II, New York, 1993, p. 527, Moss et al. note that the overall wear and patination of this group indicates an eighteenth century date, as the state of wear usual to the bottles in this group would have taken a considerable amount of time. The authors note an additional sign of an early date are the brass necks, foot rims and original stoppers on this group, all of which would have been originally gilt. The present bottle is noteworthy for its floral subject matter, pristine condition of the lacquer and the rare green lacquer stopper with integral brass spoon and 'cork'.

Two comparable lacquer bottles, but with figural decoration, from the J & J Collection are illustrated in ibid., nos. 311 and 312, the former of which was sold in Important Chinese Snuff Bottles from the J & J Collection, Part I; Christie’s Hong Kong, 25 April 2004, lot 815. For other bottles in this group with figural decoration in the Palace Museum, Beijing, see Snuff Bottles - The Complete Collection of Treasures of the Palace Museum, Hong Kong, 2003, pp. 255-58, nos. 392-95. See, also, M. Hughes, The Chester Beatty Library, Dublin, Chinese Snuff Bottles, Baltimore, 2009, pp. 214-15, no. 170, for an unusual example from this group with metal loops at the shoulders, and R. Kleiner, Chinese Snuff Bottles from The Burghley House Collection, Hong Kong, 1989, nos. 131-134, for other examples from this group.