A carved amber 'cat and butterfly' snuff bottle, Qing dynasty, 18th / 19th century | 清十八 / 十九世紀 琥珀雕耄耋圖鼻烟壺

Humphrey Hui, An Addicted Dedication: Chinese Snuff bottles Christopher Sin's Collection, vol. I, Hong Kong, 2013, pl. 317.

出版：

許建勳，《An Addicted Dedication: Chinese Snuff bottles Christopher Sin's Collection》，卷一，香港，2013年，圖版317

The quality of the material and the carving on this imperial snuff bottle is exceptional. The scene of the squirrel with grapes refers to the rebus zaishang yipin, meaning 'to taste once more', which is a pun for 'to be promoted to a higher rank', a phrase that has the same pronunciation in Chinese. The scene of the cat and the butterfly has the auspicious connotation of living to the age of seventy or eighty. See a closely related snuff bottle from the Collection of Bruce Dayton and Ruth Strickler Dayton sold in these rooms, 28th September 2021, lot 802.