PROBABLY IMPERIAL, 1780-1880

Details

A CARVED RED LACQUER SNUFF BOTTLE
PROBABLY IMPERIAL, 1780-1880
The snuff bottle is finely carved in high relief with a phoenix flying amidst clouds on the front and back, and the narrow sides are carved with elongated rocky promontories, all below a band of pendent acanthus leaves on the neck.
2 in. (6.6 cm.) high, gilt-metal stopper, cloth box

Provenance

Knapton Rasti, London, 17 June 2002.
J & J Collection.
J & J Collection, Part V; Christie's New York, 17 September 2008, lot 82.

Lot Essay

See two other examples of this group illustrated in Chinese Snuff Bottles: A Miniature Art from the Collection of Mary and George Bloch, Hong Kong, 1994, nos. 262 and 263. The present bottle features phoenix, or fenghuang, as the main decoration, which may well suggest that it could have been made for the Court, since the phoenix came to represent the empress in the Qing dynasty.

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