Lot 1152
  • 1152

An extremely rare and very fine Suzhou school carved black and white jade inscribed snuff bottle signed Shixiang 1740-1850

Estimate
2,800,000 - 3,500,000 HKD
bidding is closed

Description

very well hollowed, the flattened ovoid body tapered to meet a short oval foot, cleverly carved on one side using the white jade inclusion within the two layers of black stone to depict a monkey offering a peach to a reclining robed figure, leaning against rockwork under a paulownia tree, the reverse with a raised panel incised in gilt with an inscription signed Shi Xiang followed by the seal Yun, the black stone with some white mottling, the white stone slightly celadon in tone; the rose quartz stopper with a jadeite collar  

Provenance

The Liddell Collection, London. 
Messrs. Bluett, London.
Mrs. Alfred Clark.
Christie's London, 18th June 2002, lot 175. 

Catalogue Note

The present snuff bottle is a fine example of the exceptional quality of carving typical of the Suzhou school.  It appears that no other bottle of this exact type has been published.  The white relief is skillfully carved to form a self-contained rockwork ground, and the black inclusions are cleverly used to depict the figures, highlighting areas of detail and creating an impressive display of depth and texture. 

The inscription on the reverse, unusually carved within a raised panel, is an excerpt from the well-known Shupu, "The Treatise of Calligraphy", composed and written by the great calligrapher and calligraphy critic Sun Guoting c. 687 AD.  This text, written on a scroll of almost 9 metres long has become a classic within the critical writings on the art of Chinese calligraphy, and is itself a fine example of art.     

A snuff bottle with inscriptions quoting the section immediately following the quotation above, also signed by Shixiang, in the Monimar Collection, is illustrated in Clare Lawrence, Miniature Masterpieces, London, 1996, no. 66.  See two other examples signed by Shixiang, one in the Seattle Art Museum, illustrated by Bob Stevens, The Collector's Book of Snuff Bottles, New York, 1980, no. 433-434; and the other from the Schoen Collection, sold at Christie's Hong Kong, 1st May 1994, lot 901.  Compare black and white jade bottles of similar high-relief carving in Moss, Graham & Tsang, A Treasury of Chinese Snuff Bottles: The Mary and George Bloch Collection, nos. 126, 130 and 131.