AN EXCEEDINGLY RARE TURQUOISE MATRIX ‘MONKEYS AND PEACH’ SNUFF BOTTLE, 1760-1830

拍品描述

AN EXCEEDINGLY RARE TURQUOISE MATRIX ‘MONKEYS AND PEACH’ SNUFF BOTTLE, 1760-1830 China, probably Imperial workshops Beijing. Well hollowed, finely rendered as a large peach with a small mouth, the bottle is raised on leafy branches that issue leaves, while two monkeys clamber up the narrower sides, their spine incised with minute stipples. The turquoise stone displays natural darker markings and veins. Stopper: Coral, carved spoon Dimensions: Height including stopper 49 mm. Diameter mouth 5 mm. Most turquoise snuff bottles are of a distinctly green color that is attributable to the absorption of oils from the hand with much use. To the Qing Chinese, the stone was known as lüsongshi ('green pine stone'), whether green or blue, suggesting that green was the more common color. The Tibetan and Chinese turquoise was found originally both as green and blue, and much of what was used in the snuff-bottle world would have started life as green material. In China, it is clear that both green and blue veined material was equally valued. The evidence lies in snuff bottles made from other materials that evoke turquoise. Of the entire turquoise range of Qing glass snuff bottles, many more are of a green tint than a sky-blue one. Porcelain imitations of the material are even more informative. Both the green and blue varieties were regularly copied during the mid-Qing period. One of the finest imitation turquoise bottles is in the Ault Collection (Kleiner 1990, no. 131). It probably dates from the late eighteenth century and is of a distinctly green color. In the same publication, a magnificent and unique porcelain bottle made for the Master of the Xie Bamboos, whose hall name appears on other known porcelains of the first half of the nineteenth century, simulates a turquoise-matrix bottle with panels of calligraphy in iron-red on white. Not only is the color unambiguously green, it is as riddled with black matrix markings as any of the real material carved into bottles. Literature comparison: Compare a turquoise pomegranate-form snuff bottle, dated Qing dynasty, 6.3 cm long, in the National Palace Museum, Taipei, reference number 故雜001095N000000000. For two fruit-shaped turquoise bottles, see Chang Lin-sheng, Snuff bottles in the Collection of the National Palace Museum, Taipei, 1991, p. 266, nos. 403-404. Auction result comparison: Type: Closely related Auction: Bonhams Hong Kong, 25 may 2011, lot 79 Price: HKD 168,000 or approx. EUR 22,500 converted and adjusted for inflation at the time of writing Expert remark: Compare the material, color, manner of carving, and rare figural subject. Note the size (6.2 cm).

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