AN INSCRIBED BLUE AND WHITE AND BLACK-ENAMEL 'HAN SEAL' SNUFF BOTTLE MARK AND PERIOD OF GUANGXU

Wing Hing, Hong Kong, 1993.

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. 1421.

The overall condition is very good except for some occasional surface wear, especially to the incense burner and the central area of the reverse.
"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."

Han seals for magistrates of other locales, similar to the one on this bottle, have been discovered, but the model for this one has yet to be located. To find a specific date around the seal is highly unusual. There was an eclipse of the sun in that month (on 13 March 210, to be exact); Cao Cao 曹操 issued a call for talented men in obscurity to come forth and serve; but if the designer of this snuff bottle intended an historical allusion to something that happened in Xunyang in the second month of Jian’an 15, it is difficult to determine with certainty.  

Quite apart from this being a rather crowded composition with so much going on around the bottle, it is an unusual one, combining, as it does, artefacts of ancient culture with a normal scene of two scholars chatting in a landscape while a fisherman passes in his boat.

The paired lines above the chatting scholars read:

對坐清談世事，閒看淺水行舟。

We sit facing, engaged in disinterested conversation on affairs of our time.
We observe at leisure the moving boats on shallow waters.

The identical words are found on a charming bowl excavated in the 1980s and attributed to the Guangxu era by the Jiangyin Museum.

This mould was used for a variety of different decorative combinations, mostly without shoulder inscriptions, and with various subjects painted on the flat main side. There is one in underglaze blue and iron-red only, where the iron-red is very cleverly used to back the seal-text, giving it considerable verisimilitude (Au Hang 1993, no. 295). Two other enamelled versions are in Robert Kleiner & Co. 1994, no. 63, and Kleiner 1990, no. 196. Both are simpler, lacking the additional date around the body of the seal and the shoulder inscriptions. The closest, however, is in ibid., no. 195, also a Guangxu-marked, blue-and-white version with the date around the body of the raised seal and a shoulder-inscription. Like Sale 9, lot 143, this may have been part of a series produced for the court.