Bottle ID: 695

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BLUE AND RED UNDERGLAZE JARLET, SEA CREATURES

Date: 1820-1880

Height: 59 mm

Porcelain with a transparent glaze on cobalt and copper, of bulbous, tapering form, the shoulders sloping towards a slightly everted lip and tapering to a narrower circular foot; decorated continuously in underglaze cobalt-blue and copper-red with eight mythical sea creatures including two clam creatures, three winged creatures and three four-legged animals against a dense background of overlapping waves; the base with an apochryphal four character mark in regular script, Yongzheng nianzhi. Attributed to Jingde zhen.

Similar Examples:

Crane Collection no. 334.

Kleiner, Robert. Chinese Snuff Bottles from the Collection of John Ault, 1990, pp. 97, no. 167.

Provenance:

Cottone Auctions, NY, 3.23.2013, lot 348

Very few porcelain snuff containers exist in this jarlet form, although the Crane Collection houses two, this one from hard paste porcelain and the other, no. 334 even more rarely from soft paste porcelain. The original matching stopper of the soft paste example illustrates clearly that these jarlets were produced as containers for snuff. This example does not have a matching stopper, although the stopper with it must have come from a similar snuff jarlet, albeit a smaller one. However, the porcelain "cork" attached to the stopper fits snugly into the mouth of the jarlet.

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