AN INSCRIBED MOULDED LACQUERED TANGERINE SKIN 'PRUNUS' SNUFF BOTTLE QING DYNASTY, 19TH CENTURY

of compressed circular shape, moulded with a circular body surmounted by a straight neck, one side with a circular panel enclosing prunus blossoms, the other centred with a four-character xiangqing yishou ('fragrance lengthens longevity') followed by shouzheng, the base with a guiwei cyclical date and the sides with cartouches of shuangxi (double-happiness) characters

Collection of Gerry P. Mack.
Collection of Emily Byrne Curtis, 1986.
Mary and George Bloch collection.

Hugh Moss, ed., Chinese Snuff Bottles, no. 3, London, 1966, p. 39, fig. 33, and p. 64, lower left.
Mary and George Bloch, ‘Favourite Snuff Bottles. The Mary and George Bloch Collection’, Arts of Asia, September-October 1990, p. 93.
Hugh Moss, Victor Graham and Ka Bo Tsang, A Treasury of Chinese Snuff Bottles: The Mary and George Bloch Collection, vol. 7, Hong Kong, 2009, no. 1512.

There is a tiny chip to the outer lip. There are areas of wear and slight separation of the layers across the lip. There are also a few miniscule chips to the lacquer covering the bottle, the largest on the base, just outside the flat foot. The snuff bottle is otherwise in good condition.
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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 artist here has responded to the obvious care that had gone into preparing a complex mould by fitting a very neat wooden inner neck to help hold the shape. Some types of orange skin, particularly mandarins and tangerines, when cleaned of their fruit and dried, are thin; the addition of the wooden liner makes a big difference to the strength of the neck and to the appearance of the bottle when in use.

Another problem with dried and emptied citrus peel is that they can dry out very rough on the inside—clearly evident in this example, where the interior looks like a miniature relief map of some of the less hospitable parts of Afghanistan.

This snuff bottle appears to have been made as a wedding gift, since the two narrow sides both have in relief the traditional double-happiness ideogram that is ubiquitous at Chinese weddings.

The dedication is XX xiong zhuzheng □□兄屬正, with the undeciphered characters probably reading Yunlang 雲郎 or Yunqing 雲卿.

This is one of the rare examples where one has the luxury of a cyclical date conveniently lacquered onto the base, albeit with no indication of the correct cycle. Guiwei corresponds to 1823, which is the most likely date, but sixty years either side cannot be entirely ruled out.

The reason it is most likely to be from 1823 is that it was probably inspired by moulded-gourd snuff bottles, which we know flourished in the mid-Qing, from the late Qianlong period into the Daoguang era. A date sixty years earlier would seem to isolate it from the influence of this fashion, and by 1883 the trend had weakened considerably. The fad for moulding fruits into snuff bottles would not have lasted indefinitely, since this was not the ideal material for producing snuff bottles. It is far more likely that this bottle was a Daoguang response, thus 1823.