Bottle ID: 230

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CARVED WITH TAOTIE MASKS

Date: 1740-1799

Height: 62 mm

Nephrite, pale greenish-white with some traces of skin, well hollowed, of flattened, elongated ovoid form tapering towards a recessed oval foot with a slightly flared footrim, the shoulders sloping to a slightly waisted neck with everted straightened mouth, carved in low relief on each main side with taotie.

Imperial, attributed to the Palace Workshops, Beijing.

Similar Examples:

Crane Collection no. 236
Moss, Hugh, Victor Graham and Ka Bo Tsang. A Treasury of Chinese Snuff Bottles - The Mary and George Bloch Collection, 1995, Vol. 1, pp. 232-233, no. 95 and pp. 384-385, no. 148.
Parke-Bernet Galleries Inc., New York, December 2, 1969, lot 139, The Collection of Mrs. Elmer A. Claar, Part One.

Provenance:

Hugh Moss [HK] Ltd.

It is exceptionally rare to find any object within the Chinese decorative arts carved with a complete taotie showing the whole body including the tail, legs and paws. The taotie was a fabulous and gluttonous mythical beast, so greedy that it is reputed to have devoured its own body. This is one reason for its usual depiction of simply the head, or, if on handles for incense burners and other vessels, the head in the process of eating its own body, symbolized by the arc of the handle. Occasionally on archaic wares the head is shown with a body divided on either side of it to provide a band of decoration, but in later wares, such as this snuff bottle, depictions of the entire beast are very rarely found. The palace attribution here is confidently made on the basis of the unique subject matter of the taotie, a favorite of the Qianlong Emperor because of its archaism, and by examining both the material and its resultant form.

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