Lot 101

Lot 101
Treasury 1, no. 122

An inscribed nephrite pebble-material ‘landscape’ snuff bottle

(‘The Zhiting “Deer and Pine” Suzhou Jade’)

Nephrite of pebble material; well hollowed, with an irregular, flat foot; carved with a continuous rocky landscape scene with a stag and a deer beneath a pine tree, inscribed in relief draft script with a poetic inscription followed by the signature Zhiting
Zhiting, Suzhou, 1680–1760
Height: 6.02 cm
Mouth/lip: 0.5/2.25 cm
Stopper: gilt-silver inlaid with kingfisher feathers, with a formalized floral design and integral finial surrounded by a band of formalized petals; stained ivory collar

Lot 101 Provenance:
Sotheby’s, London, 6 and 9 May 1986, lot 301

Published:
Kleiner 1987, no. 39
Treasury 1, no. 122

Exhibited:
Sydney L. Moss Ltd., London, October 1987
Creditanstalt, Vienna, May–June 1993

Lot 101 Commentary
Quite apart from its power as sculpture, with superb use of the entirely natural skin colour, this is one of the more exciting of all Suzhou snuff bottles because of the signature it bears. Only four snuff bottles signed by Zhiting are currently known, along with a handful of other pieces, all of small size. A snuff bottle in grey and white nephrite was sold at Christie’s, New York, on 3 June 1993, lot 328. The signature in seal script is contained in two seals, an alternative form that is also found on another of the known examples, a small, rectangular white jade bottle carved with flowering prunus on one side and an inscription on the other in relief clerical script (Hugh Moss records). The fourth bottle, from a private Canadian collection, is a typical white nephrite example of late first-phase style and is signed in relief draft script.

The other published small jade carvings by Zhiting are both pendants from the Zhirou Zhai Collection in Hong Kong (Watt 1980, nos. 216 and 217). Watt quotes no documentary evidence for Zhiting’s dates, and the chances are that none are known, since commercial carvers were rarely noted in literary sources, so presumably his dating of Zhiting to the Kangxi period is based entirely on style.

This example could be of the late Kangxi period, judging by the style and quality of carving, but again might be later. We cannot agree with Kleiner’s suggestion that what he perceived as a ‘slightly more forced scene’ points to a nineteenth-century date for this bottle (Kleiner 1987, no. 39). We can see nothing forced about the subject, which is both fluent and superbly carved, making excellent and confident use of the relief plane of skin. The single distinctive feature that might lead one to question the Kangxi dating of the entire group is the very narrow mouth in relation to the width of the lip through which this example is hollowed.

We have expressed the belief that virtuoso hollowing and excessively small mouths, which also require virtuoso workmanship in achieving even good hollowing because of the restricted access to the interior, were probably an evolutionary development in snuff bottles that did not occur until the market was somewhat satiated with standard bottles and required something a little special to maintain a high level of interest. We suggested that this might not have happened before the Qianlong period. This was a wild guess, based on little more than common sense and a general feeling received from a large number of bottles that are hollowed through small mouths. It is, of course, quite possible that this feature was first developed at Suzhou, where virtuoso workmanship was standard, and at a much earlier period, only to become common at other workshops during the Qianlong period.

While accepting the possibility of a late Kangxi date for Zhiting’s bottles, it might be sensible at present to allow that he may have worked a little later, perhaps into the mid-eighteenth century. At present, dating is still rather speculative for later jade carvings as a whole, and for snuff bottles in particular, with or without signatures, although it is immensely exciting to be able to attach a carver’s name to some of the finest of Suzhou carvings, even if no biographical details are available as yet. It is also likely that further stylistic analysis will reveal other unsigned works attributable to him, and perhaps, one day, further signed and dated works will be found to help resolve the outstanding puzzle as to his active period.

The poem, in literate draft script, reads:

Where a myriad flowers bloom the pines grow to a height of a thousand feet.
When all animals cry aloud the deer also makes itself heard.