Lot 248
Treasury 6, no. 1273 (‘Narrow Column’)
HK$47,500

Colourless glaze on cobalt on porcelain; with a very slightly concave circular foot; painted under the glaze with a continuous design of an imperial five-clawed dragon in pursuit of a flaming pearl surrounded by formalized clouds and flames above another dragon rising from formalized waves; the lip with a band of five formalized bats all facing inwards; the unglazed foot carved with a series of concentric circles; the lip, inner neck, and interior glazed
Imperial kilns, Jingdezhen, 1830–1900
Height: 8.45 cm
Mouth/lip: 0.70/1.72 cm
Stopper: coral branch; gilt-silver collar

Provenance:
Hugh Moss (HK) Ltd (1979)

Published:
JICSBS, Winter 2008, p. 18, fig. 6
Treasury 6, no. 1273

Of all the known pillar bottles, this extremely rare variant comes closest in appearance to the original pillar wrapped with its rug. The neck has been reduced to an incised line right at the top of the body and is of almost the same diameter as the body. It is also the thinnest example known for one of anything approaching its height, adding to the verisimilitude. One would expect such a response to the original idea to be the first of its kind, with the more typical snuff-bottle neck coming later, but that does not appear to be the case. Judging from the drawing of the dragons and, particularly, of the bats around the lip, and from the nature of the blue, it is more likely to date from the early nineteenth century. Whichever was the earliest version of the wrapped-pillar bottles – and it may have been the one with the widely flared neck and broad, flat lip – it obviously evolved into the nineteenth century to produce a number of variations, and this seems to be one of them. The drawing of the dragons is particularly telling, since the most likely early versions, represented by Sale 1, lot 134, are powerful beasts convincingly drawn and entirely coherent in their flight through the air. They are sinuous and realistic (in so far as a mythical creature can be realistic), as they are on the earlier of the pillar carpets themselves. In this version there is minor confusion as to exactly what is happening with the upper curve of the dragon’s neck, and the lower limbs are splayed out more as a pattern than as an organic structure. This shift from realistic depiction to decorative pattern often attends the repeated production of a design and is typical in dragon-design snuff bottles of the Daoguang period and thereafter.

This is one of the few from the broader group with the second dragon rising from waves around the base. For other examples of the theme, see Sale 1, lot 8 (the dating range for which has been revised to 1810 – 1870; see Moss 2008), and, in glass, Sale 3, lot 130. The band of five bats around the lip is also a decorative feature that does not appear on others of the broader group.

This is not the Sotheby’s sale catalogue. This is a product of Hugh Moss for the purposes of this website. For the catalogue details please refer to Sotheby’s website or request a copy of a printed sale catalogue from Sotheby’s.