A BLUE AND WHITE PORCELAIN POUCH-FORM SNUFF BOTTLE QING DYNASTY, QIANLONG / JIAQING PERIOD

Robert Kleiner, 1994.

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. 1185.

Scratches to the surface from wear. Tiny glaze bubbles visible on both sides, all part of the original firing process.
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This very rare shape for a snuff bottle also occurs in an early-eighteenth century enamel-on-metal bottle made at the palace workshops and still in the imperial collection (Li Jiufang 2002, no. 34, and Xia Gengqi 1995, no. 8). The enamelled version is reasonably dated to the Yongzheng period despite the absence of a reign mark, but in any case cannot be later than early Qianlong. The design there is much clearer, while the present example is a devolved version with barely recognizable scrolling peonies and other auspicious flowers in the two main panels. On the palace version, the narrow-side panels are also filled with similar scrolling flowers, whereas here they are replaced by prunus and bamboo. Given the existence of the earlier bottle and the rarity of the form, one can be fairly certain that this was inspired either by the enamelled version or by something else like it.

The nature of the blue-and-white decoration would allow for an eighteenth-century date, and the unglazed interior would be appropriate for the late-Qianlong or Jiaqing periods. Its obvious origin in an earlier eighteenth-century object that was in the imperial collection suggests that the object itself has imperial origins, probably as part of an effort on the part of the Qianlong emperor, late in his reign, to innovate by reviving and improving upon models of past excellence. Whenever it was made, it remains an intriguing rare form.