清十九世紀 粉彩「狀元紅」酒醰式鼻煙壺

Hugh Moss (HK) Ltd，1993年

Hugh Moss、Victor Graham 及曾嘉寶，《A Treasury of Chinese Snuff Bottles: The Mary and George Bloch Collection》，卷6，香港，2007年，編號1405

Stopper illustrated in book replaced by glass equivalent. Small chip on footrim. 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."

During the nineteenth century, it occurred to the potters at Jingdezhen to combine two pleasant pastimes: snuff and wine. The result was a series of snuff bottles in the form of wine jars, complete with the woven casing that on real jars would provide protection and handles. There are many different designs and sizes, some identifying a particular wine and, in this and a few other unusual cases, even its manufacturer. They seem to have enjoyed popularity from some time in the Daoguang period into the later century. Some even have original stoppers of the sort that sometimes covered the more expensive wines, and, from the fifteenth century onwards, the meiping 梅瓶 (‘prunus-blossom vase’) form whenever it had a cover. (These stoppers were like an inverted cup that enclosed the entire neck and rested on the shoulders so that, in the case of a wine jar, a secure seal could be assured.) This and lot 156in this sale represent this varied group of bottles.

Since they are all of uncompressed forms and not obviously formed in a two-part mould, one cannot be sure whether the relief pattern is from a mould, carved, built up from lines of slip, or made of rolled strings of malleable porcelain woven into basketwork and stuck to the body. The foot was probably added to the body separately, a fairly standard method for uncompressed forms.

This unusual model is inscribed not only with the name of the wine, but of the company that made it. An almost identical bottle was in Sotheby’s London, 21st July 1977, lot 7, while other models of wine jars were in Sotheby’s New York, 17th March 1997, lots 403 and 404. A larger version, with characters placed in the openwork weave of the simulated container, was in Sotheby’s Olympia, 13 June 2003, lot 815 (the illustration is wrongly numbered 814).

The wine was given this name because in the past families in the south-eastern province of Zhejiang who were blessed with baby boys used to brew wine and bury jars of wine in the ground. The wine would not be drunk until the boy came of age. The name zhuangyuan hong implies the hope of the parents that their children may one day become the top graduate in the final civil-service examination. This snuff bottle made into the form of such a wine jar, therefore, conveys hopes for male offspring as well as the boy’s future scholastic success.