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Lot Essay
The present flattened octagonal bottle is delicately painted on one side with two magpies perched amidst a flowering magnolia tree and lush peonies. The reverse is painted with prunus, narcissus and lingzhi. The narrow facetted sides are of yellow-ground panels detailed with brocades. The enaemlled four-character mark is on the base within a shaped cartouche.
Surviving Yongzheng-marked snuff bottles of any medium are extraordinarily scarce, and no other porcelain enamelled bottle of this type dating to Yongzheng period appears to be recorded, making the present bottle a potentially unique example.
A distinctive feature of the present lot is its octagonal form; such shaped snuff bottles were later produced during the Qianlong period in glass and copper. Additionally, the motifs of birds amidst flowers and bamboo with rocks derive directly from the classical academic tradition of Chinese painting established in the Northern Song dynasty- a genre favoured by the Qing Imperial Court. On the present bottle, these classical pictorial scenes are combined with vibrant, multicoloured flower roundels, a decorative element particularly popular during the Yongzheng reign. Such a combination of naturalistic painting with dense geometric brocade ground is exceedingly rare. For a related falangcai bowl decorated with comparable scenes and brocade roundels, see one in the Palace Museum, Beijing, illustrated in in The Complete Collection of Treasures of the Palace Museum, Porcelains with Cloisonné Enamel Decoration and Famille Rose Decoration, Hong Kong, 1999, p. 24, no. 21 (fig. 1). Such combination does not seem to be found in later periods. A metal-bodied enamelled snuff bottle of flattened form painted with swallows, apricot blossom, butterflies, lilies, and side floral roundels, is preserved at the Palace Museum, Taipei, collection no.: gufa000206N (fig. 2).
Surviving Yongzheng-marked snuff bottles of any medium are extraordinarily scarce, and no other porcelain enamelled bottle of this type dating to Yongzheng period appears to be recorded, making the present bottle a potentially unique example.
A distinctive feature of the present lot is its octagonal form; such shaped snuff bottles were later produced during the Qianlong period in glass and copper. Additionally, the motifs of birds amidst flowers and bamboo with rocks derive directly from the classical academic tradition of Chinese painting established in the Northern Song dynasty- a genre favoured by the Qing Imperial Court. On the present bottle, these classical pictorial scenes are combined with vibrant, multicoloured flower roundels, a decorative element particularly popular during the Yongzheng reign. Such a combination of naturalistic painting with dense geometric brocade ground is exceedingly rare. For a related falangcai bowl decorated with comparable scenes and brocade roundels, see one in the Palace Museum, Beijing, illustrated in in The Complete Collection of Treasures of the Palace Museum, Porcelains with Cloisonné Enamel Decoration and Famille Rose Decoration, Hong Kong, 1999, p. 24, no. 21 (fig. 1). Such combination does not seem to be found in later periods. A metal-bodied enamelled snuff bottle of flattened form painted with swallows, apricot blossom, butterflies, lilies, and side floral roundels, is preserved at the Palace Museum, Taipei, collection no.: gufa000206N (fig. 2).