Page 75 - September 21 2021 Curtis collections snuff bottles Bonhams NYC

671 672

671 672
A HIGH-RELIEF-MOLDED GLAZED AND GILT PORCELAIN AN ENAMELED PORCELAIN MOTH-FORM SNUFF BOTTLE
‘ZODIAC’ SNUFF BOTTLE 1820-1880
Qianlong mark, 1800-1860 The open-winged moth molded naturalistically with a variety of
Of tapering baluster shape with flaring neck and short oval foot markings and delicately enameled in deep blue, turquoise, pink, red,
with narrow foot ring, molded in a continuous scene with the twelve yellow, puce and tones of green to the wings and body and further
animals of the zodiac on a grassy bank and amidst rockwork and the highlighted in gilt.
bare branches of a tree, with one animal the dragon amidst clouds 1 3/4in (4.5cm) high
encircling the flaring neck above the rounded shoulders with animal-
mask fixed-ring handles, all painted in a black-brown enamel with $1,500 - 2,000
major touches of gilding and set against a backdrop of turquoise glaze,
which also encircles the foot, with a gilt four-character Qianlong seal
mark in a line on the base. 1820-1880年 瓷胎蝴蝶形鼻煙壺
2 3/4in (7.1cm) high, stopper
For three almost identically molded and enameled examples, See
Michael C Hughes, The Blair Bequest, Chinese Snuff Bottles from
$1,500 - 2,500 Princeton Art Museum, p. 216, no. 295, a bottle which entered
the collection in 1936; Kam-chuen Ho, Chinese Snuff Bottles, A
1800-1900年 瓷胎模印描金十二生肖鼻煙壺 Miniature Art from the Collection of Mary and George Bloch, Hong
Kong Museum of Art, 1994. ,no. 186; and Sotheby’s, Hong Kong, 3
This snuff bottle is one of several identically molded bottles with the November 1994, lot 1030.
twelve animals of the Chinese calendar. Whereas each bottle springs
from the same mold, the enameling varies from one to the next. This Another bottle of slightly different form is illustrated by Robert Hall,
bottle contrasts a gilt ground for the realm of terrestrial animals with Chinese Snuff Bottles II, London, 1989, no. 3.
the sky enameled in a blue glaze reminiscent of Jun ware. A second
bottle, illustrated in Michael C. Hughes The Blair Bequest, Chinese
Snuff Bottles From the Princeton University Art Museum, 2002, p.208,
no.281, employs a mottled robin’s egg glaze to define the sky. A third
example illustrated in Rachel R. Holden, Rivers and Mountains Far
From The World, 1994, no 75, is fashioned in a monochrome bronze
glaze.

THE EMILY BYRNE CURTIS COLLECTION OF CHINESE SNUFF BOTTLES | 73