A BLUE AND WHITE PORCELAIN 'INDIAN LOTUS' SNUFF BOTTLE MARK AND PERIOD OF TONGZHI, DATED 1864

Collection of John Ault, 2002.
Robert Kleiner, 2002.

Robert Kleiner, Chinese Snuff Bottles from the Collection of John Ault, Hong Kong, 1990, no. 187.
Hugh Moss, Victor Graham and Ka Bo Tsang, A Treasury of Chinese Snuff Bottles: The Mary and George Bloch Collection, vol. 6, Hong Kong, 2007, no. 1419.

One chip from the outer lip. Numerous tiny scratches and abrasions covering the surface, all wear through use.
"In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective, qualified opinion. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
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."

It is very rare for an imperial bottle to be precisely dated (though a date may appear on the decoration, such as an imperial poem), and it must be noted that jiazi can simply mean 'year' (just as ABCs means 'the alphabet'); but since there is a jiazi year in the Tongzhi reign (corresponding to 1864), the potter had to have anticipated that the mark would be read as designating a specific year. It is likely that a jiaziyear, as the beginning of the sixty-year cycle, was considered an auspicious year worthy of commemoration in this way.

The presence of the era name does not necessarily indicate an imperial affiliation for this bottle. The era name qualifies the cyclical date (it tells us this jiazi year in the Tongzhi era and therefore must be 1864, not sixty years earlier or later), and that could be the name’s sole function.

A Taiping expeditionary force from rebel-occupied Nanjing advancing through Jingdezhen’s administrative centre at Jiujiang 九江in 1853 and numerous battles and waves of destruction at the hands of various armies in and around Jingdezhen for the next decade left the imperial kilns at the pottery centre in ruins until at least two years after this bottle was made—if they were properly rebuilt at all, that is. When the Jingdezhen area was in the hands of the rebels or the supply routes to and from the court were cut, the court would presumably have had trouble placing orders, even with private kilns (most of which were apparently not destroyed). It is perhaps more likely, therefore, that the era name here is a dating device rather than an imperial designation. That said, the presence of an almost identical example with the same mark was in Christie’s New York, 2nd December 1993, lot 462, suggests that a set was made, and sets are typical of production for the court.

A number of nineteenth-century ceramic shapes were taken from eighteenth-century palace shapes in other materials. This form is based upon the palace shape used for glass and hardstone bottles in the Qianlong period that inspired Sale 4, lot 145.

This bottle has obviously been fired on its lip, the only part of the exterior left unglazed, and the interior is glazed, as was standard for the nineteenth century.