A BLACK LACQUER, BONE AND SILVER 'TAOTIE MASK' SNUFF BOTTLE QING DYNASTY, 18TH / 19TH CENTURY

Robert Kleiner, 1996.

Christopher Sin, Humphrey Hui, and Po Ming Kwong, ed., A Congregation of Snuff Bottle Connoisseurs: An Exhibition of Chinese Snuff Bottles, Tsui Museum of Art, Hong Kong, 1996, cat. no. 265.

Hugh Moss, Victor Graham and Ka Bo Tsang, A Treasury of Chinese Snuff Bottles: The Mary and George Bloch Collection, vol. 7, Hong Kong, 2009, no. 1522.

Cracks in the lacquer, surrounding the monster masks and running down both sides, one from the base of the lip and one from the sloping neck. A further crack on one main side, divides towards the base and a crack from one side runs across the foot.
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NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

The lacquer here is of unvaried black colour. A first impression suggests that the lacquer is built up on something heavier than fabric or softwood, but this is misleading. All but the top five centimetres of the interior has been filled with what appears to be clay, although why is a complete mystery. If the foot were flat enough to function, allowing the bottle to stand, then it might have been added as ballast to give greater stability, but the bottle would never have been able to stand on its convex oval base, so that cannot have been the reason.

The interior reveals that it was made in two halves joined at the narrow sides, a standard method of making wooden bases for lacquer bottles and an unnecessary one with textile; wood is the likely material, then. The bone neck was then added to the two sections of wood, and the masks fixed apparently directly to the wood. Only then was the lacquer applied. The inner neck is bone, whereas the outer neck is black lacquer; the edge of the lacquer painted on the bone under the lip reveals that the application of the lacquer was indeed the final step.

No other bottle of this shape and combination of materials is known, although this simple form decorated only with mask handles exists in late-eighteenth-century palace glass (Geng and Zhao, no. 81). Such a glass bottle is a possible inspiration for the present bottle, but the resemblance is just as likely to be coincidental. Dating unique works of art is often more difficult than dating a broader range of wares, particularly there is no way of knowing where the work in question was made and into which part of snuff-bottle evolution it fits. That said, a mid-Qing date seems likely for this bottle.