Page 24 - Carl Barron Snuff Bottle Collection, CHRISTIE's Spet 12 2018

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A SILHOUETTE AGATE SNUFF BOTTLE
1780-1880
The bottle is carved in low relief utilizing the dark brown markings on one side with
Meng Haoren riding a donkey and carrying a large branch of prunus, the ground
of pale grey color with dark brown markings suggesting a surrounding landscape.
2Ω in. (6.3 cm.) high, quartz stopper
$8,000-10,000
PROVENANCE
Gerd Lester Collection; Sotheby’s New York, 22 March 1998, lot 124.
Hugh Moss (HK) Ltd., Hong Kong, 1999.
Ruth and Carl Barron Collection, Belmont, Massachusetts, no. 2832.
EXHIBITED
Boston, International Chinese Snuf Bottle Society Convention, The Barron Collection,
23-26 September 2008.
LITERATURE
Symposium on Chinese Snuf Bottles from the Collection of Carl F. Barron,
Presented at the Annual Convention of the International Chinese Snuf Bottle Association,
Boston, privately printed, 2008, p. 16, fg. U.
The subject of a scholar riding a donkey, sometimes followed by an attendant holding a
branch of prunus, has been variously interpreted. Ka Bo Tsang has identifed this particular
fgure as the Tang-dynasty scholar, poet and recluse, Meng Haoren, who was reputed
to have admired prunus blossoms. For further discussion, see Ka Bo Tsang, “Who is the
Rider on the Donkey?”, JICSBS, Summer, 1994, pp. 4-16, fg. 14. Another possibility is that
the fgure represents the ffth-century poet Lu Kai, from the Song State (AD 420-479) of
the Southern Dynasties period, who is shown traveling in Jiangnan accompanied by his
attendant who carries a branch of prunus blossoms. Lu sends these blossoms hundreds
of miles north to his friend the historian Fan Ye (AD 398-445) in Chang’an with a poem,
the last line of which reads: “I send you merely a branch of spring.”
1780-1880年 皮影瑪瑙踏雪尋梅圖鼻煙壺

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