Page 30 - Ruth and Carl Barron Snuff Bottles September 2016

436 Ť436
A WHITE AND SPINACH-GREEN JADE EGGPLANT-
437 FORM SNUFF BOTTLE
28 IMPERIAL, 1750-1820
The mottled white jade bottle is carved with a butterfly and a single
sepal, mounted with a translucent spinach jade calyx-form collar
with black flecks.

2q in. (6.4 cm.) high, spinach jade stopper
$3,500-4,500

PROVENANCE

Bernice Straus Hasterlik Collection; Sotheby’s New York, 17
September 1996, lot 77.
Ruth and Carl Barron Collection, Belmont, Massachusetts, no. 2273.

The present lot is part of a well-known group of bottles, made in
some quantity for the Court, usually in sets of ten or twenty. The
Court had a large, constant demand for snuff bottles for the many
members of the Imperial family as well as for gifts to be widely
distributed. Apart from the sets in the Imperial collection (see Snuff
Bottles in the Collection of the National Palace Museum, pp. 142
and 145, nos. 112 and 115), others are known, including a number
of individual bottles in collections which may originally have been
parts of a set. Sets of ten or twenty often indicate an Imperial order,
or a tribute to the Emperor. Individual examples are illustrated in
Moss, Graham, Tsang, A Treasury of Chinese Snuff Bottles, Vol. 1,
Jade, no. 70; and in M. Hughes, The Blair Bequest. Chinese Snuff
Bottles from the Princeton University Art Museum, p. 39, no. 4.

It has been suggested that the eggplant is a symbol of fertility,
as it is fast-growing and each fruit has numerous seeds, which
may explain why so many sets of these were made. Apart from its
obvious symbolism, the form of the fruit would have lent itself well
to connoisseurs of snuff bottles - its shape providing a pleasant
experience as it was clasped in the hand.
䍆䕩ㅳ邘蒗䑨聖㌉

Ť437
A CARVED AMBER SNUFF BOTTLE
1750-1850
The naturalistic pebble-form bottle is of deep orange tone and is
carved with a scene of boys at play, one carrying a blossoming lotus
branch and the others dancing amid trees.

2º in. (5.6 cm.) high, glass stopper
$2,400-3,400

PROVENANCE

Gerd Lester Collection; Sotheby’s New York, 17 September 1996,
lot 182.
Vanessa F. Holden Collection, New York.
Ruth and Carl Barron Collection, Belmont, Massachusetts, no. 2346.
䍆蚉⇢㝑偤⥘聖㌉