The Meriem Collection Part II. Lot 252

252
**AN UNUSUAL BEIJING ENAMEL SNUFF BOTTLE
IMPERIAL, PALACE WORKSHOPS, BEIJING, QIANLONG FOUR-CHARACTER MARK IN BLUE ENAMEL
AND OF THE PERIOD, 1770-1799
Of compressed form with flat lip and recessed foot surrounded by a footrim, the body finely painted in famille rose enamels with a continuous design of three pairs of birds (two orioles, two paradise fly-catchers, and two pheasants) in a landscape with a pine tree, roses, asters and begonias, the neck encircled by a band of leiwen between two bands of diagonal lines, above a ribbon of blue and yellow dots, the base encircled by a band of pink dots, the foot inscribed with a four-character mark in blue enamel, Qianlong nian zhi (Made in the Qianlong period), gilt-metal stopper
5.1 cm. high
$70,000-90,000

P R O V E N A N C E :
Hugh Moss Ltd.

E X H I B I T E D :
Canadian Craft Museum, Vancouver, 1992.

There is a series of Beijing enamel snuff bottles which can be dated to the last decades of the reign, among which are several of varying shapes decorated with a similar design of pairs of birds, representing marital harmony.

See the exhibition catalogue, Hong Kong Museum of Art, Snuff Bottles of the Ch’ing Dynasty, p. 51, nos. 14 and 15; and for a third, see R. Kleiner, Chinese Snuff Bottles from the Collection of Mary and George Bloch, p. 9, no. 8. A fourth bottle in the Eugene Fuller Memorial Collection, Seattle Art Museum, has a Jiaqing reign mark, which reinforces the dating of the group to the late eighteenth century.

The Meriem Collection Part II. Lot 252