Page 79 - March 15 2017 The Ruth and Carl Barron Collection

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•413 Molded porcelain snuf bottles were an innovation of the late
A MOLDED AND ENAMELED PORCELAIN SNUFF Qianlong period and further developed and fourished in the
BOTTLE Jiaqing period. The decorative motifs found on this group were
IMPERIAL, JINGDEZHEN KILNS, QIANLONG FOUR- drawn from mythology and popular contemporary novels. It is
CHARACTER SEAL MARK IN IRON RED AND OF THE extremely rare to fnd a molded porcelain bottle with the subject
PERIOD, 1780-1795 of ‘The Eight Immortals,’ such as the present example, with a
Qianlong mark; comparables from the same mold generally bear
The bottle is crisply and deeply molded overall with the Eight Jiaqing marks. It is likely, however, that this bottle was produced
Immortals wandering in a rocky outdoor setting. One side is in the fnal years of Qianlong’s reign, prior to 1795, because of
centered with a rootwood boat carrying three immortals towards a the proper orientation of the ‘S’ element in the Qian character of
heavenly pavilion while the other is decorated with fgures standing the mark. There is a group of porcelain snuf bottles with the ‘S’
beneath a rocky outcropping of green and blue color, all set against element reversed, which seems to have been a change that came
a repetitive wave ground. about in the last years of the 18th century, after Qianlong had
abdicated but was living in retirement. For a further discussion on
2º in. (7 cm.) high, glass stopper the ‘S’ element and molded snuf bottles, see H. Moss, V. Graham,
K.B. Tsang, A Treasury of Chinese Snuf Bottles: The Mary and
$4,000-6,000 George Bloch Collection, Hong Kong, 1995, Vol. 6, pp. 397-99 and
pp. 474- 82, nos. 1177 and 1212-1214.
PROVENANCE

Robert Kleiner, Belfont Company Ltd., Hong Kong, 1997.
Ruth and Carl Barron Collection, Belmont, Massachusetts,
no. 2536.

清乾隆 瓷胎模印粉彩八仙過海圖鼻煙壺 礬紅四字篆書款

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