A COCONUT SHELL AND BONE 'LEAF' SNUFF BOTTLE LATE QING DYNASTY

Collection of John Ault, 2005.
Robert Kleiner, London, 2005. 

This is from a series of apparently late-Qing snuff bottles made of bone and coconut shell – in this case with the usual two segments of curving shell separated by a frame of bone, to which they are firmly glued. The two materials are well matched, both being organic and of similar practical hardness under the carver’s knife, but they also offer a striking contrast in both markings and colour, a contrast that is often used to considerable effect.

The leaf form is very nonspecific and lacks any texturing or vein pattern that would help identify it, it is best to consider the model indeterminate. Some porcelain bottles of a leaf shape, mostly white glazed, may be intended to represent an artemesia leaf, which has healing properties. Note anexample illustrated by Moss, Graham, and Tsang in The Art of the Chinese Snuff Bottle: The J & J Collection, New York, 1993, no. 236.. The same may be intended here, but in the absence of positive evidence we have chosen instead to opt for the entirely appropriate tobacco leaf. By the late seventeenth century, the plant was growing in several parts of China. The tobacco leaf would have been well known to any snuff maker, and presumably also to some snuff takers, so it is not entirely fanciful to see this as a tobacco leaf.

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. 1655.

The overall condition is very good except for some minor surface scratches.
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