Page 62 - The Ruth and Carl Barron Collection of Fine Chinese Snuff Bottles: Part I

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A RED-OVERLAY CLEAR GLASS SNUFF BOTTLE
274 PROBABLY PALACE WORKSHOPS, BEIJING, 1760-1820

60 The transparent red overlay is carved through to the bubble-
suffused ground on either side with a circular panel, one side with
rocks emerging from waves below a bat, the other side with a
similar composition with central leafy branch. The narrow sides are
decorated with mask and ring handles.
2¿ in. (5.3 cm.) high, glass stopper

$3,500-4,500

PROVENANCE:

Asian Art Studio, Los Angeles, California, 2006.
Ruth and Carl Barron Collection, Belmont, Massachusetts, no. 4340.

EXHIBITED:

Boston, International Chinese Snuff Bottle Society Convention, The
Barron Collection, 23-26 September 2008.

1760-1820年 雪霏地套紅玻璃「福如東海」鼻煙壺

274
A WELL-CARVED CAMEO AGATE SNUFF BOTTLE
1780-1850

The bottle is well hollowed, and one side is carved in high relief using
an opaque white area of the warm grey stone with a scholar riding a
donkey, possibly Meng Haoran, followed by his attendant carrying a
prunus branch beneath a larger fowering prunus branch.
2√ in. (7.3 cm.) high, mother-of-pearl stopper

$3,500-4,500

PROVENANCE:

Belfont Company Ltd., Hong Kong, 25 March 1995.
Ruth and Carl Barron Collection, Belmont, Massachusetts, no. 1763.

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 Haoran, 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.”

A similar cameo agate snuff bottle was sold at Christie’s New York, 13
September 2012, lot 1125.

1780-1850年 瑪瑙巧雕「踏雪尋梅」圖鼻煙壺