Bottle ID: 438

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VENEER, 100 SHOU

Date: 1750-1800

Height: 55 mm

Bamboo veneer (zhuhuang) on bamboo or wood, and silver; of flattened shield shape with a flared, rectangular neck and flat, bulbous-rectangular foot, carved on each main side in low relief with fifty shou (‘longevity’) characters in seal script within a convex, shield-shaped panel, the narrow sides flattened and tapering towards the foot, the upper neck-rim and lip made up of two rectangular segments of veneer, the interior lined with sheet-metal, probably silver.
Possibly imperial, attributed to the Palace Workshops.

Similar Examples:

Snuff Bottles - The Complete Collection of Treasures of the Palace Museum, Vol. 47, Beijing, 2003, p. 250, no. 385.
Sotheby's, New York, September 14, 2010, lot 96, The Joe Grimberg Collection.
Kleiner, Robert. Treasures from the Sanctum of Enlightened Respect. Chinese Snuff Bottles from the Collection of Denis Low, 1999, p. 242, no. 207. 
Moss, Hugh M. Chinese Snuff Bottles 6. Chinese Snuff Bottles from the Collection of the Rt. Hon. The Marquess of Exeter, K.C.M.G., 1974, p. 14, O.29.

Provenance:

Hugh Moss (HK) Ltd.
Christie's, New York, September 21, 1995, lot 355.

This is one of a series bamboo veneer (zhuhuang) bottles made for the Court during the mid-Qing period along with a range of other objects, including miniature, and sometimes larger sized cabinets, scepters, boxes and covers, thumb-ring cases, brush pots and other scholarly objects. Although these bottles were possibly made at the Palace Workshops, it is also possible that a distant facility specialized in this work and supplied the Palace. Interestingly, the center of the revived art today, albeit almost exclusively in order to create fakes, is not in Beijing. 
There are also two groups of bottles which seem to be stylistically related - a group of cinnabar lacquer bottles, such as the example listed above from the 'Exeter Collection', and a much smaller group of pewter bottles which may be later copies.

 

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