Bottle ID: 351

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BLUE UNDERGLAZE, PILLAR WITH DRAGONS

Date: 1770-1850

Height: 76 mm

Porcelain with a transparent glaze on cobalt oxide, of cylindrical form with a waisted neck and everted lip; painted in underglaze blue with a continuous design of a five-clawed dragon in flight, the foot unglazed and incised with a series of concentric circles.

Imperial, Jingde Zhen Imperial kilns

Similar Examples:

Perry, Lilla S. Chinese Snuff Bottles: The Adventures & Studies of a Collector, 1960, p. 79, no. 57.
Kleiner, Robert W. L. Chinese Snuff Bottles from the Collection of John Ault, 1990, p. 105, no. 185.
Kleiner, Robert. In Search of a Dragon: Underglaze-Blue and White Porcelain Snuff Bottles from the Collection of Joseph Baruch Silver, 2007, p. 24, no. 4.

Provenance:

Hugh Moss (HK) Ltd.
Robert Kleiner, 1998

Published:

Robert Kleiner & Co., 1998 Catalogue, no. 28

There is a large group of similar dragon bottles with a single dragon wrapped around the body in underglaze blue and, occasionally, in underglaze red. Often the unglazed base is incised, as this bottle is, with concentric circles. They appear to date from the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries when compared with other underglazed porcelain bottles of that period. Since dragons were predominantly Imperial at that time with restrictions that only the Imperial family was allowed to use the five clawed beast in decoration, it may be assumed that this bottle is part of an Imperial group, made in quantities for the Court over a period of years. They were probably inspired by the practice of wrapping a dragon-carpet, among other designs, around pillars in temples and halls so that the disjointed design of a dragon becomes continuous around the pillar.

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