Page 104 - September 21 2021 MAnfred Arnold Collection snuff bottles Bonhams NYC

476 477

476 477
A MINIATURE GOURD SNUFF BOTTLE A RELIEF-CARVED AMBER SNUFF BOTTLE
Attributed to Wentong, indistinct cyclical date, possibly 1870 1800-1880
Of small rounded form, inscribed with an indistinct cyclical date, Of spade shape, carved in a continuous scene with various Daoist
possibly reading gengwu or gengzi year, corresponding to 1870 in figures, a woman clutching a peach, possibly Xiwangmu, and her
the first reading or 1900 or in the second reading, incised with black attendant beneath a blossoming prunus on one side and two elderly
highlights to depict a Daoist or Buddhist altar scene with figures gentlemen near pine on the other, the narrow sides with lion-mask
and identifying inscriptions, all below a short tapering inserted neck; fixed-ring handles; stopper.
stopper. 2 1/4in (5.7cm) high
2 1/8in (5.5cm) high
$1,800 - 2,500
$1,800 - 2,500
1800-1880 琥珀浮雕道教人物刻舖首衔环鼻煙壺
或為1870年 傳文通 北京 天然葫蘆陰刻人物微型圖鼻煙壺
Provenance:
Provenance: Montclair Art Museum, New Jersey
Alan Hartman, New York Robert C. Eldred, The Montclair Art Museum Collection, 27 August
Robert Kleiner, The Alan Hartman Collection, 30 March 2007 2004, lot 188

See the footnote to the previous lot 475 in this sale. Exhibited:
International Chinese Snuff Bottle Society Convention, New York, 5-9
November 2013, no. 105

For a lengthy discussion of the production of amber snuff bottles and
the proliferation of Daoist subject matter, see Michael C. Hughes,
The Chester Beatty Library, Dublin, Chinese Snuff Bottles, Baltimore,
2009, pp. 198-199, no. 157. It is possible given the wide ranging
Daoist themes depicted on so many amber bottles that a particular
workshop, perhaps part of a Daoist community, was the leading
producer and that they found the mystical qualities of the ‘fossilized’
resin material somehow in balance or accordance with their own
alchemical leanings.

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