A White and Russet Jade ‘Chilong’ Snuff Bottle Qing Dynasty, 18th / 19th Century

C.K. Liang, Hong Kong.
Robert Hall, London, 1990.

Hall, 1990, no. 20.
Moss et al., 1996-2009, vol. 1, no. 23.

There is a minute area of smoothing to the outer lip, but overall in good condition.
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This unique bottle is reminiscent of a common type of belt hook that featured a chi dragon carved on the gently curving section of the hook, often standing proud of the body of the hook, to which it is connected in only five or six places. There are several examples in nephrite at the National Palace Museum in Taiwan. However, the shape of the chi dragon when seen from the front of the bottle is suggestive of the character fu 富 (good fortune), particularly in the lower part of the design, which resembles the element 田, and the top, which resembles the element 宀. Carving dragon bodies to form auspicious characters is also seen on glass snuff bottles. The configuration of the nephrite pebble and its skin must have presented an ideal opportunity for the designer of this bottle to do it in nephrite.

This is probably a bottle from the latter Qianlong period, when patrons had long since started to collect far more bottles than they needed for use, and when variety and novelty were the order of the day to catch the interest of increasingly jaded patrons.

The archaic air of the chi dragon and the possible allusion to ancient belt hooks remind us that the Qianlong emperor is well known for his love of archaism and for his instructions to his jade carvers to follow archaic patterns. A bottle of this sort, regardless of where it was made, would have been the ideal gift at court and would undoubtedly have pleased the emperor. It is also worth noting, as a further possible imperial feature, the variation on the meiping (‘prunus-blossom vase’) form, clearly visible in the back view.