AN IVORY, GOLD PAINTED AND LACQUER 'LADIES IN A GARDEN' SNUFF BOTTLE JAPAN, LATE 19TH / EARLY 20TH CENTURY

Collection of Eric Hancock Collection, circa 1965.
Collection of Hugh Moss, 1978.
Belfort Collection, 1986.

Très précieuses tabatières chinoises: Collection rassemblée par Maître Viviane Jutheau, L'Arcade Chaumet, Paris, 1982, p. 20, no. 229.
Robert Kleiner, Chinese Snuff Bottles from the Collection of Mary and George Bloch, Sydney L. Moss Ltd., London, 1987, cat. no. 212.

Hugh Moss, ed., Chinese Snuff Bottles, no. 2, London, 1965, p. 18, pl. D.
Journal of the International Chinese Snuff Bottle Society, March 1979, front cover.
Viviane Jutheau, Guide du collectionneur de tabatières chinoises, Paris, 1980, p. 132 (the image reversed).
Journal of the International Chinese Snuff Bottle Society, June 1981, p. 29, fig. 2 (the image reversed).
Hugh Moss, Victor Graham and Ka Bo Tsang, A Treasury of Chinese Snuff Bottles: The Mary and George Bloch Collection, vol. 7, Hong Kong, 2009, no. 1684.

Evidence of the close stylistic link between the ivory and lacquer carving styles of the broader group represented by this bottle are suggested by the similarity between the dragons carved into the ivory here and those carved into the lacquer of Sale 7, lot 159. Both appear to have been carved by the same hands, allowing for the differences found in lacquer carving style.

The Imperial Master may have carved both the ivory examples and the lacquer and ivory examples himself or perhaps supervised a growing workshop that did the carving to produce a series of wares in his style. Whether he had his own lacquer-making facility or outsourced the manufacture of the lacquer blank to other workshops is not known.

Another possibility rests in the nature of the Maruki 丸喜Company discussed under Sale 6, lot 237, where there is a single company employing various outside artists to produce wares for their clients. It is possible that the aforementioned Imperial Master was a group of several artists employed by a supervising agent of some kind and working in a similar style. It may be impossible to ever find out.

An intriguing aspect of Japanese production is that, even when the artists sign with Japanese names, they are rarely recorded among the known artists and craftsmen of the period who were making wares for a Japanese market. It is almost as if the entire enterprise of producing ‘Chinese’ snuff bottles for a Western market was deliberately kept discreet; when Japanese names were used, even these were pseudonyms.

This bottle is in remarkably fine condition for the type. One problem with combining materials is that the coefficient of expansion can cause problems, sometimes putting pressure on the ivory to the point where it cracks. Ivory can crack in any case, regardless of the combination with other materials and, as with many organic substances, extremes of humidity or temperature should be avoided whenever possible.

This one has remained intact, although the gilding that originally decorated the ivory detail is now visible only in the engraved lines and where the carving is protected, as on the wave ground. It is likely that all the detail was initially gilt, and then the surface gilding was rubbed to give an appearance of age before it went out into the world, where it was further worn by the hands of dealers and collectors. In this case, the ivory around the panels, which are more exposed to the hand when holding it, exhibits the traces of a century of handling on top of any artificial wear the artist might have originally imposed.