A MINIATURE TURQUOISE SNUFF BOTTLE QING DYNASTY, 18TH / 19TH CENTURY

Hugh M. Moss Ltd., 1993. 

Robert Kleiner, Chinese Snuff Bottles in the Collection of Mary and George Bloch, British Museum, London, 1995, cat. no. 298. 
Chinese Snuff Bottles in the Collection of Mary and George Bloch, Israel Museum, Jerusalem, 1997.

Hugh Moss, Victor Graham and Ka Bo Tsang, A Treasury of Chinese Snuff Bottles: The Mary and George Bloch Collection, vol. 3, Hong Kong, 1998, no. 422.

There are some minor polished nibbles to the lip and foot. The stone has some natural veining and pitting, but otherwise the overall condition is very good. The actual colour is slightly richer than the catalogue illustration.
"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."

This magnificent miniature is a close counterpart to Sale 2, lot 38. It is also of unusually brilliant blue colour, with heavy matrix veining, and of a similar form, although here a little patination of the blue colouring to green can be seen on random patches on the pure stone, as opposed to the matrix.

Zhao Zhiqian 趙之謙 in the 1860s commented in a brief entry on turquoise that ‘Many snuff bottles used to be made out of turquoise in bygone times, but none are made now’ (綠松石舊時多製之。今不復作)。 See Lynn 1991, p. 19). If this really reflects the situation in his day, then most of the bottles here must either be eighteenth or early nineteenth century. Some have been allowed to be a bit later, but it may well be that they really did stop making functional turquoise bottles during the first half of the nineteenth century.

The problem is that Zhao’s work is not reliable enough generally to take whatever he says as gospel. There is a series of late, cheap, and poor-quality turquoise bottles with a simple drilled hole to take a spoon but no serious capacity for snuff that can only be late Qing or early twentieth century in date, but it is possible that they were either beyond his ken (being tourist-industry products and probably not offered or even shown to such aesthetes as Zhao and his peers) or made after his comments were made.