Bottle ID: 680

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JAPANESE RED WITH GOLD

Date: 1854-1940

Height: 61 mm

Cinnabar-red, dark brown, and gold lacquer on wood or textile, of flattened shield shape with a slightly waisted neck, flat lip and recessed, oval footrim, carved in relief on each main side within a recessed oval panel with, on one side, two birds in flight in front of a blossoming prunus tree with grass growing as its base and a rock beyond, with formalized clouds above, and on the reverse with a pheasant on the gnarled trunk of a mature pine tree, with formalized clouds beyond, the panels surrounded by a design of formalized floral diaper, the base and neck each with a band of double-unit leiwen (thunder pattern), the birds, and backgrounds to the panels, the base and foot, neck and lip all painted in gold lacquer, the inner neck in red lacquer, and the interior covered in dark brown.
Japan.

Similar Examples:

Moss, Hugh M. (ed.) Chinese Snuff Bottles: 3, p. 43, figs. 44 and 46.
Kleiner, Robert W. L. Chinese Snuff Bottles from the Collection of George and Mary Bloch, 1987, p. 158, no. 214.

Provenance:

Hugh Moss (HK) Ltd.
Robert Hall (2005)
Pamela R. Lessing Friedman
Robert Hall

Published:

Hall, Robert. Chinese Snuff Bottles XI, The Snowy Peaks Collection, 2005, no.125
Friedman, Pamela R. Lessing. Chinese Snuff Bottles from the Pamela R. Lessing Friedman Collection, 1990, no. 95
Hall, Robert. Chinese Snuff Bottles II, 1989, no. 24

Several groups of bottles were made in Japan for a Western collectors’ market from the second half of nineteenth century into the mid-twentieth century, from the Meiji period onwards. Although Japan was known for its lacquer production at various locations, it is not specifically known where any of the snuff bottles were made. Many of them are of a typically high level of technical artistry, creating some of the great masterpieces of the snuff-bottle world, although they rarely had any functional intention. It is likely that one specific workshop of lacquer bottles is represented by this example. They are characterized by the maker’s use of cinnabar-red and gold lacquer, panels of decoration, sometimes in a scalloped or foliate frame and by leiwen at neck and base painted in gold. The workmanship is impressive if judged by Chinese lacquer-carving standards, although it should be remembered that in Japan, lacquer, along with most other arts and crafts, was refined to an obsessive level of perfection by the late-nineteenth century. Also impressive is the typically Japanese sense of design where two colors have been cleverly contrasted to maximum effect. The combination of gold and cinnabar lacquer is sumptuous and it is perhaps surprising that it did not occur more often on Chinese lacquer snuff bottles. The carving of the diaper grounds is also extremely well done on this example and throughout the group.

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