Bottle ID: 489

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GOURD

Date: 1750-1850

Height: mm

 

Gourd, well patinated, of a rich, golden-brown color; of irregular, slender double-gourd shape, with a long, tapering neck, tied around with an elaborately-bound cord with a pearl bead finial, set with a green chalcedony finial.

 

Similar Examples:

Crane Collection no. 331
Lawrence, Clare. The Alexander Brody Collection of Chinese Snuff Bottles, 1995, p. 42, no. 59.
Moss, Hugh, Victor Graham and Ka Bo Tsang. A Treasury of Chinese Snuff Bottles - The Mary and George Bloch Collection, 2009, Vol. 7, Part 1, p. 81, no. 1497.

 

Provenance:

Hugh Moss (HK) Ltd.
Wang Ning, Beijing, June 2003

 

 

 

 

Among plain double-gourds, simply plucked from the vine, dried, polished and with its fruit hollowed out, this must rank as one of the most charming. Of lovely, and unusually small and manageable form, it retains the remnants of an old, probably original cord with which it could be attached to either a pendant, or on a belt, becoming the ideal adornment and snuff container for one of the scholarly elite. The gourd was highly valued by the literati as it is one of the most humble of materials. Even in its simplest form, it was highly charged with Daoist symbolism relating to paradise and the fairy lands. As the double-gourd has an upper and lower part divided by a narrow 'waist', so too was paradise separated from the mortal world by a narrow entrance designed to exclude the unenlightened.

 

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