AN IMPERIAL ENAMELLED GLASS 'LADIES IN LANDSCAPE' SNUFF BOTTLE PALACE WORKSHOPS, BEIJING, BLUE ENAMEL MARK AND PERIOD OF QIANLONG

Sotheby's London, 24th June 1975, lot 390.
Collection of Sidney A. Levine. 
Sotheby's New York, 11th October 1979, lot 33. 
Belfort Collection, 1986. 

Très précieuses tabatières chinoises: Collection rassemblée par Maître Viviane Jutheau, L'Arcade Chaumet, Paris, 1982, p. 13, cat. no. 146.
Robert Kleiner, Chinese Snuff Bottles from the Collection of Mary and George Bloch, Sydney L. Moss Ltd, London, 1987, cat. no. 12.
Kleine Schätze aus China. Snuff bottles—Sammlung von Mary und George Bloch erstmals in Österreich, Creditanstalt, Vienna, 1993, p. 4.
Robert Kleiner, Boda Yang, and Clarence F. Shangraw, Chinese Snuff Bottles: A Miniature Art from the Collection of George and Mary Bloch, Hong Kong Museum of Art, Hong Kong, 1994, cat. no. 13.
National Museum of Singapore, Singapore, 1994-5.

Hugh Moss, 'An Imperial Habit', Journal of the International Chinese Snuff Bottle Society, December 1975, p. 9, fig. 31.
Art at Auction: The Year at Sotheby’s, 1974-75, Sotheby’s London,
1975, p. 392.
The Snuff Bottle Review, no. 1, 1976, p. 44.
Hugh Moss, 'Criteria for Judging Snuff Bottles', Journal of the International Chinese Snuff Bottle Society, December 1977, p. 35.
Art at Auction: The Year at Sotheby's, 1979-80,  Sotheby's London, 1980, p. 425.
Journal of the International Chinese Snuff Bottle Society, September 1979, p. 35, top right.
Viviane Jutheau, Guide du collectionneur de tabatières chinoises, Paris, 1980, pp. 78-79 and dust jacket cover.
Journal of the International Chinese Snuff Bottle Society, June 1981, p. 29.
Connaissance des arts, July 1981, p. 92.
Gayle Gray Laverlochère, ‘Book Review: Tabatières Chinoises’, Arts of Asia, September-October 1982, p. 149.
Gayle Gray Laverlochère, 'Snuff Bottle Exhibition, Paris 1982', The Snuff Bottle Review, March 1983, p. 8.
Robert Kleiner, ‘The International Snuff Bottle Exhibition, Paris, 4 June-13 June 1982’, Journal of the International Chinese Snuff Bottle Society, Winter-Spring 1983, p. 29, fig. 5.
Robert Kleiner, Images of Asia: Chinese Snuff Bottles, Hong Kong and New York, 1994, p. 14, fig. 2.1.
Hugh Moss, Victor Graham and Ka Bo Tsang, A Treasury of Chinese Snuff Bottles: The Mary and George Bloch Collection, vol. 6, Hong Kong, 2007, no. 1070.

The bottle does not stand entirely straight when placed on its footrim in the natural position with some curvature of the rectangular form from the firing process. There are two tiny chips on the inner lip. The bottle also has some minor, tiny enamel losses to the decoration and minor natural wear.
"In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective, qualified opinion. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

On the 9th day in the 5th month of the 6th year during the Qianlong period (1741), an enamelled glass ‘fish-lady’ rectangular snuff bottle was mentioned, together with nine other enamelled glass snuff bottles of various subjects and forms, to be presented at Qianqinggong (Palace of Heavenly Purity) by eunuchs; see Qinggong neiwufu zaobanchu dangan zonghui [Zaobanchu archives of the Qing Imperial Household Department], Beijing, 2007, vol. 9, p. 700-701.

Like so many palace snuff bottles from the eighteenth century, this was possibly made as part of a series. As befits highly artistic wares, and in common with the majority of palace enamels on glass, porcelain, and metal from the Kangxi period into the 1760s, although the subjects in a series may be similar, the compositions are never repeated from object to object. This was true also of the series of yellow-ground double gourds represented by the famous ‘Barbara Hutton Gourd’ in Sale 8.

The wares in the present group are distinguished by their shape, size, diagonally slanting plantain-leaf neck bands, formalized floral designs, ruby-pink narrow-side panels of European subjects juxtaposed with the Chinese women on the main panels, and the small, neatly drawn marks (a standard of early-Qianlong production).

Two from the series are still in the imperial collection, one in Taipei (Chang Lin-sheng 1991, no. 29; Guoli Gugong bowuyuan and Hou Yi-li 2012, p. 126, no. II-026), the other in Beijing (Xia Gengqi 1995, no. 103, and Li Jiufang 2002, no. 16), and two more are published in Geng Baochang and Zhao Binghua 1992,nos. 105 and 106.

The Chinese figures on this series all appear to be romanticised peasant women, perhaps influenced by the aristocratic European fascination during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries with peasant life, idealised illustrations of which were prominent among the European prints and designs that influenced imperial arts at both Guangzhou and Beijing during the eighteenth century. A related but much more elaborate and larger example is Sale 4, lot 38, with its European figures.

The most obvious European influence here is found in the ruby-pink panels of landscape on the narrow-sides, not only in the subject matter, which is obviously Western, but in the style of painting, with its realistic shading and use of body colour as much as line to define form. Alerted to this, the viewer notes that the same is evident in the Chinese scenes. Although the faces of the women are defined by iron-red lines, they are also delicately shaded, and the folds in the clothing are entirely defined by body colour and chiaroscuro rather than by filled outlines. The background foliage and grassy ground are also painted entirely in the European style.

The depictions here may be European in some details, but the general theme is thoroughly Chinese.