Page 105 - September 21 2021 MAnfred Arnold Collection snuff bottles Bonhams NYC

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A LAVENDER, PEAR-GREEN AND RUSSET JADEITE ‘MONKEY For an Official School chalcedony bottle carved with a design of three
AND PEACH’ SNUFF BOTTLE monkeys and a discussion on the subject, see Hugh Moss, Victor
1820-1900 Graham and Ka Bo Tsang, A Treasury of Chinese Snuff Bottles, The
Of compressed baluster shape with short waisted neck, carved in low Mary and George Bloch Collection, Vol. 2 Part 2, Quartz, pp. 370-371,
relief around the body with three monkeys, one clutching a peach; no. 317.
stopper.
2in (5.1cm) high The Monkey, whilst associated with trickery, is supposed to be able
to bestow health, protection and success by keeping away malicious
$4,000 - 6,000 spirits, see C.A.S. Williams, Outlines of Chinese Symbolism and Art
Motives, Rutland, Vermont and Tokyo, 1978, p. 278. See also Therese
1820-1900 翡翠刻淺浮雕仙猴獻壽鼻煙壺 Tse Bartholomew, Hidden Meanings in Chinese Art, Asian Art Museum
of San Fransisco, 2006, p.118, no. 5.21, the monkey, hou, is a pun for
Provenance: a highranking noble equivalent to a marquess, hou. The author also
Bob C. Stevens refers to the story of the monkey king Sun Wukong, from the sixteenth-
Sotheby’s, New York, Fine and Important Chinese Snuff Bottles from century mythological novel by Wu Cheng’en, who steals most of the
the Collection of Bob C. Stevens, Part III, 25 June 1982, lot 167 Queen Mother of the West’s (Xiwangmu) peaches of immortality, in
Alice O. Friedman Collection, New York, 1982-2013 retaliation for not being invited to her famous ‘Peach Banquet’(p.
Bonhams, New York, Chinese Art from the Scholar’s Studio: The Alice, 198, no. 7.40). The rebus formed by the monkey, hou, and peaches,
Maren and Fred Friedman Collection, 16 September 2013, lot 8064 shoutao, can be read as linghou xianshou, (sacred monkey offers
Michael C. Hughes LLC longevity). The author illustrates a jade carving of a monkey group
clutching peaches (7.40.1).
Literature:
Bob C. Stevens, The Collector’s Book of Snuff Bottles, Tokyo, 1976, p.
116, no. 389
ICSBS, Journal, Spring, 1992, ‘Monkey Business in a Chinese Snuff
Bottle’, p. 19

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