Lot 54

Lot 54
Treasury 1, no. 14

A nephrite pebble-material ‘leaf’ snuff bottle

(‘Wrapped-Sutra Pebble’)

Nephrite of pebble material, with artificial colour; very well hollowed and carved as a cluster of five leaves growing from a single severed branch at the base of the bottle, enclosed within a knotted sash, a flying bat low on one narrow side, the natural pebble-skin enhanced with staining
1740–1840
Height: 8.52 cm
Mouth: 0.61 cm
Stopper: coral, carved with a basket-weave design; coconut-shell collar
Illustration: watercolour by Peter Suart

Lot 54 Provenance:
Ashkenazie and Co. (San Francisco, 1988)

Published:
Treasury 1, no. 14
Gugong bowuyuan 2000, no. 105

Exhibited:
Palace Museum, Beijing, 2000
Musée de la Miniature, Montélimar, 2000

Lot 54 Commentary
Once in a while a bottle turns up that is so inspired a combination of material,
conception, and execution that it stands out immediately, regardless of the independent merits of the three components. Pebble material on its own is not unusual, but the carving here has an unusual degree of confidence and flair and the conception of the design is also very powerful.

A lovely piece of natural pebble material enhanced by staining has been carved as five leaves growing from a single severed branch, laid neatly over one another and wrapped around with a knotted sash, a design otherwise entirely unknown in snuff bottles, although other examples of leaf shapes are recorded. The distinctive and unusual style combines considerable confidence and vitality with an unusually glittery polish for nephrite.

The veins of the leaves, all left in relief, are beautifully controlled, as is the lively little bat, while the sash is more freely carved. It is almost as if, having carved the leaves very carefully and neatly one over the other, the artist then swiftly tied a loosely knotted sash round them and thought no more about it. The carving strokes for the sash are much freer, more calligraphic, and the combination of the two speaks—actually, it positively sings—of the total confidence of a carver who was in complete control both artistically and technically. For him, the difficult and time-consuming process of grinding away at the hard surface proved no constraint to his art. He might as well have been simply dipping his brush in ink and approaching a piece of paper.

This is one of a series of exceptional, large bottles that stand out. With their total confidence and presence as works of art they thumb their noses at the irrational prejudice against larger snuff bottles, bypassing the intellect to appeal straight to the heart.

The composite elements that make up the design may be interpreted to suggest auspicious sayings. The branch (zhi) and the leaves (ye) together remind one of kaizhi sanye (‘develop branches and spread foliage’), a phrase commonly used to wish newly-weds many descendants. The bat (fu) and the sash (shoudai) constitute the rebus fushou wujiang (‘May you enjoy boundless happiness and longevity’).

There is another possible interpretation, however. In Fang Yulu’s 1582 Fangshi mopu (Fang’s Ink Cake Designs), juan 5, there is an ink cake in the form of a tied bundle of four leaves that are remarkably similar to those on this bottle. They are pattra leaves, according to the caption, and indeed they do look like the leaves of the pattra trees depicted in some Buddhist paintings (as in this supposed Song-dynasty portrait of an arhat). Now, it is hard to reconcile their shape with the long, rectangular pattra palm leaves that were actually used for books in ancient India, Tibet, Burma, and other lands. Those pattra leaves are about 49cm long and 5 to 6cm wide—and very flat, without veins. But although textual references to pattra-leaf texts are common in Buddhist literature, of course, and the actual palm-leaf books must have been available within Tibetan and other monasteries patronized by the Qing rulers, relatively few Han Chinese would have seen them. Because of the way the leaves in paintings such as the one cited here radiate out from clumps, it may be that Chinese artists understood that these leaves were palmately compound but did not know what the leaflets actually looked like. Regardless of the fact that the shared image of the pattra leaf in the minds of the painter, the ink-maker, and (we propose) this snuff-bottle carver was wrong, they thought they were depicting a pattra leaf, and thus this snuff bottle might have appealed to a pious Buddhist snuffer.

For another bottle with a number of leaves as its main design, but without the sash, in the variety of soapstone known as ‘chicken-blood’ stone, see Kleiner, Yang, and Shangraw 1994, no. 250.