Bottle ID: 491

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MOTHER OF PEARL WITH GILT

Date: 1760-1850

Height: 43 mm

Mother-of-pearl, bronze and gold, of small flattened ovoid form with a waisted neck and wide mouth, made up of two convex pieces of mother-of-pearl joined at the edges within gilt-bronze mounts also forming the neck and lip, the metal chased with a design of formalized clouds, one main side of the mother-of-pearl incised with an auspicious wish in regular script, ‘Longevity as everlasting as the mountains; blessings as endless as the oceans and sky’ followed by one seal, Shanren,‘Hermit’.
Possibly imperial.

Similar Examples:

Moss, Hugh, Victor Graham and Ka Bo Tsang. A Treasury of Chinese Snuff Bottles - The Mary and George Bloch Collection, 2009, Vol. 7, Part 2, pp. 454-455, no. 1659.

Provenance:

Hugh Moss (HK) Ltd.
M & C Gallery, Hong Kong, July 2003
Private Collection, Hong Kong

This bottle is unique not only in the combination of materials, but in the form and decoration as well. The possibility that it is imperial can be considered because of the nature of the gilt-bronze, and also because of the style of the stopper, which is typical of a range of stoppers produced for enamel snuff bottles in the eighteenth century Palace workshops. However, the Court did not, as a rule, produce only one snuff bottle of a particular design. It is more likely that the bottle was made in Guangzhou and sent up to the Court as an imperial tribute, at which point the stopper was added. A discrepancy between the wear on the gilt-bronze and that on the inscription engraved in a soft material indicates that the auspicious inscription may have been added later; perhaps when the bottle changed hands and was given as a birthday present to the subsequent owner. The gilt metal is well worn, with most of the gilding rubbed through to the bronze beneath on the high spots, and yet the inscription remains quite crisp, despite being on a very soft material. Shanren is a fairly common anonymous seal and ‘hermit’ is the most likely interpretation, although if the seal was read as a single character, instead of two, it could be interpreted as xian - ‘Immortal’.

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