A BLUE AND WHITE PORCELAIN 'LINGZHI' SNUFF BOTTLE QING DYNASTY, 19TH CENTURY

Sotheby’s New York, 12th March 1980, lot 67 (part lot).
Collection of Gerd Lester, 1986.

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. 1370.

One or two small glaze bubbles. Otherwise, good condition.
"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."

The drawing here is well controlled, and the blue is a good hue with pleasing variations in tone, but these vases are emphatically not Yongzheng in either style or nature, nor are the marks convincingly written for the Yongzheng reign. No Yongzheng blue-and-white snuff bottles appear to have been produced, making exact comparisons impossible, but there is a very wide variety of other blue-and-white wares from the reign; their qualities are well known, and these two miniatures are based upon genuine vases of the Yongzheng era. (For another counterfeit Yongzheng vase, see Christie’s South Kensington, 14th November 2002, lot 480.)

This and lot 69 are not a pair, but part of a series. The continuous curve of the flared mouth is also ill-suited to holding a cork and is more characteristic of a miniature vase. Of course, any suitable container became a snuff bottle once it was filled with snuff and stoppered. Small vases of this type with flared inner necks have been broadly adopted by snuff-bottle collectors in the past century or so and were probably similarly adopted by snuff takers in the late Qing period.