清末 粉彩「七十三八十四啕氣兒歪毛兒」祝壽鼻煙壺 《頤養堂製》款

「七十三」、「八十四」、「啕氣兒」、「歪毛兒」字

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1412

Minor wear to gold enamel on lip. One small area of missed enamel on the old man's jacket part of the original process. 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."

The ages of seventy-three and eighty-four were both critical mileposts, supposedly because they were the years attained by Confucius and Mencius, respectively, and it is hard to outdo those two. Thus, a common saying is ‘Seventy-three, eighty-four: Yama [the king of the underworld] sends no invitation but you go on your own.’ In Henan province, living carp were served to an old man who turned seventy-three or eighty-four in the belief that this would help him overleap the fateful period. Perhaps the presence of the fish on this bottle reflects that custom, but certainly the troublemakers are doing their best to upset it!

A different reading of the bottle can be deduced from the fact that that ‘seventy-three, eighty-four’ sometimes refers to incoherent babbling: the bottle could be a humorous celebration of chaos among the naughty young and the doddering old. However, the name on the bottom of this bottle, Yiyang tang, is one used by pharmacies or homes for the aged in the second half of the twentieth century and there must be precedents for this, although we have not been able to identify them. If this bottle was commissioned by such an establishment, it should represent a more serious wish for progeny and long life in abundance (yu 餘, conventionally evoked by the fish, yu 魚).

An identical bottle from the same series bearing the same hall name is in Geng 1992, no. 191. It is assigned a Republican date, the period between 1912 and 1949. Certainly the extremely high quality of the enamels and the excellent painting here would not preclude such a late date, but the same subject exists in underglaze versions that appear to be from the late Qing period (Hugh Moss Records), suggesting that the subject may have been popular earlier. One or both of these enamelled versions may be pre-Republican. Enamelling on porcelain recovered quickly from the deprivations of the Taiping Rebellion in the 1850s and 1860s, and work of this quality was common enough from then on.