Page 19 - Christie's Chinese Snuff Bottled the Holden Collection March 24, 2022

more realistic floral designs, sometimes including birds on branches, set on coloured
grounds…The upper example, from the Sanctum of Enlightened Respect, is one of the
rare group on a gold ground. By far the largest group of these remains in the Imperial
collection contained in a three-tiered Japanese lacquer box now containing forty-three
examples, all with engraved seal-script marks. The box is mentioned in the Qianlong
archives for the fourth year of the reign, at the beginning of the year 1739, where it is
delivered to the enameling workshop, complete with most of its bottles, but with an
empty compartment in the upper tray, which had only eleven bottles. The total for
all three trays at that time came to thirty-nine pieces. The missing bottle is ordered
replaced, and instructions are given to make four more, with a subsequent exchange
resulting in the replacement of two others; when complete, in the tenth month of the
same year, there are forty-three bottles, the number today. The bottles must have been
made, therefore, between 1736 and the beginning of 1739 at the latest, but given that
by early 1739 they were already boxed as a set and one bottle was already missing, they
are likely to date from the first year or two of the reign. The instruction from 1737
regarding adding reign marks to wares from then on might further narrow down the
date of production to 1737 or 1738. The four character seal script marks of the boxed
set are also found on other palace products from the early Qianlong reign, although the
standard for enameled glass was soon thereafter established as a blue enamel, regular-
script mark.” A similar snuff bottle in the collection of the National Palace Museum,
Taipei, is illustrated on the previous page. (Fig. 1)

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