Bottle ID: 919

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BLACK AND CREAM, PEBBLE SHAPE

Date: 1805

Height: 64 mm

Smoky crystal with a gray and pale creamy brown skin on one main surface, very well hollowed, of flattened ovoid pebble form, with a concave oval foot, the skin inscribed with a fourteen character inscrption in clerical script reading:
'Cut and polished by a superior craftsman,
is this miniature realm for the Master of the Bottle.
So as the True Man maintains his arcane tranquility,
Let the scholar recluse embrace simplicity.'
Followed by the date "sixth month of the yichou year" with the signature Youqin, 'Friend to the Zither' and two blank seals; the clear smoky gray stone on the reverse well carved in low relief with three bats in flight amidst stylized swirling clouds.

 

 

 

 

 

Similar Examples:

Crane Collection no. 475
Crane Collection no. 409
Moss, Hugh M. Chinese Snuff Bottles of the Silica or Quartz Group, 1971, p. 8, no. 5.
Hughes, Michael C. The Chester Beatty Library, Dublin. Chinese Snuff Bottles, 2009, pp.88-89, no. 69.

Provenance:

Asian Art Studio
Christie's, New York, March 30, 2005, lot 84
The J And J Collection
Ambassador T. T. Li, Shanghai 1945

Exhibited:

Poly Art Museum, Beijing, 2003
International Asian Art Fair, Seventh Regiment Armory, New York, 2003
Portland Museum of Art, Oregon, 2002
Naples Museum of Art, Florida, 2002
Percival David Foundation of Chinese Art, London, 1997
Museum fur Kunsthandwerk, Frankfurt, 1996-1997
Empress Place Museum, Singapore, 1994
Christie's New York, 1993
Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Santiago, 1968
Havana, Cuba, 1945

Published:

Moss, Hugh, Victor Graham and Ka Bo Tsang. The Art of the Chinese Snuff Bottle - The J & J Collection, 1993, Vol. I, pp. 186-187, no. 104

 

This rare example, along with the two others listed, uses the contrast of the outer skin to great effect. Providing a painterly surface, the calligraphic inscription is cut through to the material below with great skill (as the carver himself points out)! The inscription is highly Daoist in content as 'Master of the Bottle' is a clear reference to several stories in Daoist lore of immortals who shrink themselves to dwell inside bottles or gourds which themselves contain whole worlds and skies. 'Scholar recluse' is a reference to the owner of this bottle while 'True Man' admonishes the owner to be authentic in the Daoist way. The bottle listed in "Silica or Quartz" by Moss, which is from the collection of the Marquess of Exeter is somewhat similar in both style of writing and in the cutting, suggesting that they are from the same workshop and possibly by the same carver. Youqin is not a recorded carver however, and little is known about the origins of either bottle. The date of 1805 is given, though as a cyclical date it could also be 1865. The Chester Beatty example is dated to either 1817 or 1877, twelve years later than the Crane bottle.

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