清十九世紀 青花朝貢圖鼻煙壺

Gerd Lester 收藏，1986年

Gerd Lester，〈Artistry in a Bottle〉，《Antiques World》，1980年9月，頁67
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1382

Tiny bruise to the outer footrim, not significant. Surface scratches from use.
"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 elegant balance between a cylindrical and an ovoid form is a standard of the mid-nineteenth century, and many bottles of this shape are decorated with similar scenes of tribute bearers (see Sale 1, lot 95). They occur decorated in underglaze-blue, sometimes in combination with underglaze red, and sometimes, although rarely, in blue-and-white with added enamels (doucai鬥彩).

Ault believes that, despite some with Qianlong marks, all date from the Xianfeng reign or later. See Ault 1993, p. 9, fig. 70, where a bottle with a Xianfeng reign mark is illustrated; another example, rather more cylindrical in shape, is in Geng 1992, as no. 228, where it is dated to the Xianfeng period, although no reign mark is mentioned in the caption. The neck design on the present bottle is one Ault considers as dating from the Daoguang or later, and indeed there is no reason why this design should not have begun during the Daoguang reign and continued into the Xianfeng (and perhaps thereafter). Even had one not been influenced by Ault, one would probably have given these bottles a Daoguang or Xianfeng date based upon their painting style and the qualities of the materials. Snuff bottles bearing fake Qianlong marks certainly began to appear during the Daoguang period; thus, the existence of the occasional Qianlong-marked example among bottles of this type would not be an impossibility.

That the subject of tribute-bearers in general remained popular in the Xianfeng period is proven by another bottle Ault illustrated from his own collection (later in the Bloch Collection: Sale 2, lot 106), of a different composition of tribute bearers. It bears the Xianfeng mark. If there were no marks or stylistic considerations to go by, one could at least confirm that the type was in existence by the middle years of the Guangxu period, for by 1896 an example had entered an English collection (Huish 1896, fig. 6).

The painting of this design is often of superior quality, as it is here, and the series represents one of the more intriguing and consistently well-painted group of underglaze-decorated bottles of the mid-nineteenth century. Fortunately, it was, perhaps for these reasons, a popular model, oft-repeated, so a collector wishing to acquire one has only to wait patiently.