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Bottle ID: 00337
WHITE W/BLUE OVERLAY, SEAL SCHOOL, MAGPIES, CRANE & BATS
Date: 1780-1850
Height: 54 mm
Glass, of rounded flattened form with sloping shoulders, with a pale blue overlay on a milk-white ground and carved on one side with magpies in flight around a gnarled blossoming prunus tree, the reverse with a crane standing on the prow of a sampan with bats in flight above and beneath a pine tree issuing from rockwork.
Attributed to Yangzhou.
Similar Examples:
Moss, Hugh, Victor Graham and Ka Bo Tsang. A Treasury of Chinese Snuff Bottles - The Mary and George Bloch Collection, 2002, Vol. 5, Part 3, p. 737, no. 1028.
Moss, Hugh, Victor Graham and Ka Bo Tsang. The Art of the Chinese Snuff Bottle - The J & J Collection, 1993, Vol. 2, p. 655, no. 402.
Stevens, Bob C. The Collector's Book of Snuff Bottles, 1976, p. 75, no. 247.
Provenance:
Clare Lawrence Ltd.
Sotheby's, New York, October 25, 1997, lot 40
The Gerry P. Mack Collection
Exhibited:
Annual Convention Toronto, October 2007
Although not catalogued as such by Sotheby's, this bottle is undoubtedly part of the seal school group attributed to Yangzhou. Not all Yangzhou school bottles bear seals and of these, only a small number of carvers have actually been identified. The best of this group appears to be a carver who is recorded by the name of Li Junting and although this bottle does not bear his signature, the style and quality of the carving would suggest that his hand was involved in its manufacture. Two particular indicators are the elegance of the design and specifically the upturned wings of the birds, which are typically swallows when carved by Li Junting. They have been identified in this case as magpies, partly because of the association with prunus which forms a rebus "may you have happiness up to your eyebrows".