Bottle ID: 00252

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YUANMING YUAN, WHITE, CATS & BUTTERFLIES IN GARDEN LANDSCAPE

Date: 1767-1799

Height: 55 mm

 

Glass, of cylindrical form, with shoulders tapering to a slightly everted mouth and with a neatly carved splayed foot, decorated in famille rose enamels with a continous scene of two cats in a garden beside convoluted rockwork, bamboo and a blossoming prunus tree looking up at a pair of butterflies; the neck with a scrolling border above a trefoil band; the base with a three character iron-red Guyue Xuan mark.

Imperial, attributed to the Palace Workshops, Yuanming Yuan.

 

Similar Examples:

Low, Denis S. K.  More Treasures from the Sanctum of Enlightened Respect, 2002, p. 22, no. 19.
Kleiner, Robert.  Treasures from the Sanctum of Enlightened Respect, Chinese Snuff Bottles from the Collection of Denis Low, 1999, p. 21, no. 15.
Sotheby Park Bernet [Hong Kong] Ltd., November 2, 1978, lot 71, The Arthur Gadsby Collection.

 

Provenance:

Clare Lawrence Ltd.
Kwok Gallery, Singapore
A Private Singapore Collection

 

Exhibited:
 

Annual Convention ICSBS Toronto, October 2007

 

Published:
 

JICSBS, Winter 2008, p. 8, fig. 7
JICSBS, Spring 2006, p. 27, fig. 31

 

 

Many of the bottles bearing Guyue Xuan marks which can be dated to the eighteenth century and, hence, to the Jian Yuan, have naturalistic subject matters enameled on them.  This is in direct contrast to the more formal Court style that existed in Beijing with its traditions, both of archaism and religious significance.  The Jian Yuan in which the Guyue Xuan was situated was known as the Garden of Reflection, and was located along the edge of a lake.  Peter Lam suggests that glass objects, including snuff bottles, which were produced in the glass workshop of the Yuanming Yuan may have been passed to the Court painters of the Ruyi Guan for decoration.  It is clear from the Archives that the finer work was done in the Yuanming Yuan rather than in the original glass factory in the Canchikou.  The Ruyi Guan was also situated in the Dongtian Shenchu in the Yuanming Yuan.  If this is so, this clearly implies that the early Guyue Xuan group all came from the Imperial Household Workshops and should correspondingly have the same characteristics as those snuff bottles with correct Qianlong reign marks.

 

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