Page 20 - CHRISTIE'S Barron Collection Snuff Bottles 09/13/17

•217 (another view)
A CARVED GREY, BLACK AND WHITE JADE
SNUFF BOTTLE
MASTER OF THE ROCKS SCHOOL, 1740-1840
The bottle is carved in the round in shallow relief through the black
and grey stone with a craggy pine tree emerging from a rocky clif
reaching over swiftly moving white waves skillfully carved through
a white area of the stone, with a lingzhi fungus growing on the
opposite bank. The reverse is carved with a covered skif before
a raised pavilion.

3 in. (7.6 cm.) high, hollowed and painted quartz stopper
$24,000-34,000

PROVENANCE

Hugh Moss (HK) Ltd., Hong Kong, prior to 1974.
Robert Hall, London, 1989.
Robert Kleiner, Washington, 2000.
Ruth and Carl Barron Collection, Belmont, Massachusetts,
no. 3168.

LITERATURE

R. Hall, Chinese Snuf Bottles II, Including an important selection
from the Marian Mayer Collection, Hong Kong, 1989, no. 128, p. 149.

The Master of the Rocks School seems to have specialized in
carvings from this distinctive material. The School’s main output
was bottles carved with landscape designs, but many other
subjects are recorded, including a few with chi dragon designs,
which may have been partly produced for the Court. The quality
of carving and the use of material of the present bottle are typical
of this School.

A comparable example of the same size and similar use of a large
area of dark skin from the Ruth and Carl Barron Collection Part
I, was sold at Christie’s New York, 16 September 2015, lot 204,
and another from the Blanche B. Exstein Collection was sold at
Christie’s New York, 21 March 2002, lot 158. For other examples
of snuf bottles from the Master of the Rocks School, see Moss,
Graham, Tsang, A Treasury of Chinese Snuf Bottles, the Mary and
George Bloch Collection, Vol. 1, pp. 332-369, nos. 128-141. The
bottle, no. 128, pp. 322-323 exhibits a very similar material and
style to the presently ofered bottle.
1740-1840年 玉雕亭臺山水圖鼻煙壺

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