Bottle ID: 70

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MONKEY ON A PINE TREE

Date: 1750-1800

Height: 46 mm

Agate, of small rounded form, and pale honey tone, well hollowed, carved on the front with a monkey climbing across the gnarled branch of a pine tree, the trunk of the tree issuing from rockwork also carved with a monkey clambering up the trunk clutching a sprig of lingzhi fungus, the reverse carved with rockwork with an inscription reading: "where white clouds float" and with a seal in slightly raised relief across the back reading: dawan "great enjoyment", the neck of the bottle also carved with pine and cloud scrolls.

Attributed to the Suzhou School.

Similar Examples:

Crane Collection nos. 243, 341 and 363
Moss, Hugh, Victor Graham and Ka Bo Tsang. A Treasury of Chinese Snuff Bottles - The Mary and George Bloch Collection, 1998, Vol. 2, Part 2, pp. 528-529, no. 373.
Low, Denis S. K. More Treasures from the Sanctum of Enlightened Respect, 2002, p. 247, no. 229.
Asian Art Studio, Inc., Chinese Works of Art, Spring 2008, p. 61, no. 54.

Provenance:

Clare Lawrence Ltd.

When discussing dating in the Suzhou school, it does appear that the smaller, and by subject matter, less complicated bottles, such as this one, belong to an earlier part of the school in the second half of the eighteenth century. The Suzhou School utilized color to great effect to highlight different parts of the design. In this case, the darker brown inclusions are used to depict the two monkeys, lingzhi fungus and pine with the pine tree carved using the dark inclusion at the neck of the bottle extending over the mouth.

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