A BEIJING ENAMELLED 'GARDEN SCENE' SNUFF BOTTLE BLUE-ENAMEL MARK AND PERIOD OF QIANLONG

Collection of J.T. Wakefield.
Sotheby's London, 9th May 1986, lot 286. 

Kleine Schätze aus China. Snuff bottles—Sammlung von Mary und George Bloch erstmals in Österreich, Creditanstalt, Vienna, 1993.
Robert Kleiner, Boda Yang, and Clarence F. Shangraw, Chinese Snuff Bottles: A Miniature Art from the Collection of George and Mary Bloch, Hong Kong Museum of Art, Hong Kong, 1994, cat. no. 7.
National Museum of Singapore, Singapore, 1994-5.
Robert Kleiner, Chinese Snuff Bottles in the Collection of Mary and George Bloch, British Museum, London, 1995, cat. no. 10.
Chinese Snuff Bottles in the Collection of Mary and George Bloch, Israel Museum, Jerusalem, 1997.

Robert Kleiner, Images of Asia: Chinese Snuff Bottles, Hong Kong and New York, 1994, pl. 3.
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. 1083.

One shoulder has area of repainting measuring approx. 1 by 0.9 cm. There is also a tiny area of damage to one pink petal to the right of the rock. The snuff bottle is otherwise in overall 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."

Kleiner compares this bottle to one in the J & J Collection (Moss, Graham, and Tsang 1993, no. 177), and they are of similar conception, both with garden scenes leaving a good deal of white space washed in places with blue to suggest sky. They also have rather similarly conceived borders. That, however, is where obvious similarities cease; the differences are far more intriguing.

The J & J bottle is typically Chinese in its style. The rocks, like the tree trunk, are painted with vigorous, calligraphic lines, and the scene is speckled with traditional Chinese dotting to provide texture as much as to suggest moss and rough bark on rocks and trees, respectively. There, the lines of the leaves are as much an exercise in brushwork as they are in depiction; here, they are a little more subdued, more detailed and more descriptive than expressive, suggesting, perhaps, greater European influence.

This impression is confirmed by other elements of the design. The roses, seen from the front on one side, from the back on the other, are typically European, the one from the front resembling a heraldic Elizabethan rose in its formal layout. It is unusual for a Chinese artist working in enamels to depict a flower from the back. Front, side, or three-quarter views are more common in this art. There are other signs of a European hand. The grassy ground is completely filled with detail, including texturing to represent short grass, with blades of taller grass around the base of the rock. A Chinese designer would have been more likely to have made it simpler and less detailed. The rock is also very European in its depiction, without any hint of calligraphic line. It is painted to provide a realistic two-dimensional, logically shaded, Western impression of a three-dimensional object.

Confirmation of a European hand may also be found in the lower decorative border, where a very strange configuration of the standard formalized lingzhi design appears, with the usual trefoil upper register, balanced, or rather unbalanced in Chinese terms, by a lower register of different shape, resembling more the standard head of a ruyi sceptre. This use of two different registers of formalized fungus is exceptional. It appears on one other example: Sale 6, lot 212, beneath the lip and above the shoulder band (also of lingzhi). For reasons given there, if that bottle was not painted by a European, it was certainly a close copy of a European design.

It seems reasonable to assume that this bottle was also designed (possibly even enamelled) by a European hand, while the J & J bottle is more likely to have been designed by a Chinese artist. There are other indications of Europeans actually enamelling wares at the palace. The extraordinary bottle in the imperial collection decorated with quails on both main sides (Li Jiufang 2002, no. 145) shows no hint of a Chinese hand involved, either in design or enamelling, and no. 152 in the same publication may also have been enamelled by a European.