Page 53 - September 21 2021 Curtis collections snuff bottles Bonhams NYC

643
A RARE MOSS-FLECKED INSCRIBED ROCK CRYSTAL BOTTLE There appear to be at least three recorded bottles of this rare type, all
Suzhou, 1720-1800 bearing the same inscription, 自锄明月种梅花 (Zi chu ming yue zhong
Of squat spade shape, carved to one side with a plum branch rising mei hua), which can be read as ‘I hoe (in the garden) under a bright
from an ornamental rock alongside a low-relief seven-character draft moon and plant the plum seedlings’. The identical inscription appears
script followed by the seal Qingwan, the spray continuing to the in at least two poems, either of which might have been the template
reverse side below a crescent moon, the thick-walled bottle with the for our script, one, a poem entitled Zhong mei (Planting Plum Trees) by
most attractive vertical inclusions of moss-green chlorite spots that Liu Han, a Changsha native, active in the Song Dynasty and the other
suggest a winter landscape. by Zhuo Jing (1348-1402) entitled Zai mei (To Plant Plum). Each poem
2 3/8 in (6.2cm) high, stopper extols the virtues of labor and the contentment that follows.

$2,000 - 3,000 The three bottles include the present example; another in the Bloch
Collection, illustrated by Hugh Moss, Victor Graham, Ka Bo Tsang,
1720-1800年 蘇州作水晶雕梅花詩文鼻煙壺 A Treasury of Chinese Snuff Bottles, Vol. 2, Quartz, no. 365 and later
sold at Bonhams, Hong Kong 23 November 2010, lot 65; and another
formerly in the Floyd W. Ohliger Collection and sold at Sotheby’s, New
Published: York, 12 October, 1993, lot 119, when it entered the J & J Collection.
Emily Curtis, Chinese Snuff Bottles from the Collection of Emily Byrne It was subsequently sold at auction at Christie’s, New York, 17
Curtis, Newark, Soho Bodhi, 1982, col. plate, no. 32 September 2008, lot 30.

The inscriptions on all these bottles is in the same low relief style
which can certainly be compared to inscriptions found on a number of
Zhiting’s signed works.

As with the Bloch and the J & J examples, this bottle is suffused with
a series of pale-green moss-like inclusions concentrated in planes that
run vertically through the bottle and parallel to the main sides. This
structure is most clearly visible as vertical bands on the narrow sides.

THE EMILY BYRNE CURTIS COLLECTION OF CHINESE SNUFF BOTTLES | 51