Lot 238
Treasury 6, no. 1105 (‘At the Emperor’s Command’)
HK$2,680,000

Famille rose enamels on translucent white glass; with a flat lip and protruding flat foot; carved in relief with a continuous partial design, coloured and completed with enamels, of a basket containing the lower portion of the bottle, with two loop handles linked by a longer handle running across one shoulder of the bottle, the basket containing various flowers (orchids, asters, roses, peonies, and begonias); the neck with a band of formalized lingzhi; the foot inscribed in blue regular script Yuzhi (‘By imperial command’)
Imperial, palace workshops, Beijing, 1775–1800
Height: 5.91 cm
Mouth/lip: 0.70/1.69 cm
Stopper: tourmaline

Provenance:
Lilla S. Perry
Bob C. Stevens
Sotheby’s, New York, 26 March 1982, lot 75

Published:
Stevens 1976, no. 959
Snuff Bottles of the Ch’ing Dynasty, no. 29
Moss 1978, p. 13, fig 4.
JICSBS, December 1978, p. 36, fig. 29
JICSBS, Winter 1984, p. 13, fig. 18
Kleiner 1987,no. 2
JICSBS, Autumn 1988, p. 7
Kleiner, Yang, and Shangraw 1994, no. 20
Kleiner 1995, no. 32
JICSBS, Spring 2006, p. 30, fig. 38
Treasury 6, no. 1105

Exhibited:
Hong Kong Museum of Art, October–December 1978
L’Arcade Chaumet, Paris, June 1982
Sydney L. Moss Ltd, London, October 1987
Creditanstalt, Vienna, May–June 1993
Hong Kong Museum of Art, March–June 1994
National Museum of Singapore, November 1994–February 1995
British Museum, London, June–October 1995
Israel Museum, Jerusalem, July–November 1997

The partial relief design is typical of the Guyue xuan double-plane group as a whole, as are some of the decorative motifs, but if the relief were absent and the object were single-plane enamelled glass, it might equally be classified as one of the closely related late-Qianlong group represented by Treasury 6, no. 1106. The neck band is also more typical of that group than of the double-plane Guyue xuan group, where neck bands are rare.

Quite apart from its lovely subject and impressive workmanship, the truly extraordinary feature of this bottle is that it is the only one of the entire group that goes a stage further than a broadly imperial designation. Instead of the carrying the Guyue xuan name or a Qianlong reign mark (which appears mainly on vessels of other forms), it is inscribed as made ‘By imperial command’. Regrettably, what is absent is the name of the emperor who commanded. Although we cannot exclude the possibility that it is an early work from the Jiaqing reign, all the indications are that it was made for the Qianlong emperor late in his reign, and we would be very surprised to learn that it was made for his son. Whether or not this mark would properly be associated with the Qianlong emperor after his abdication is not entirely clear, but we suspect that in practical terms if he decided to use it, there would be no objections heard, regardless of what others might think was strictly correct protocol. It is also significant that in changing to a more imperial designation, the mark is drawn in blue enamel; the Guyue xuan wares on glass are mostly marked in iron-red, with only the rare exception in blue. The only other snuff bottle from the mid-Qing period that is similarly marked is the famous Yixing from the J & J Collection (Moss, Graham, and Tsang 1993, no. 253). For reasons noted under Treasury 6, no. 1448, we now believe that this was probably made for the Qianlong emperor late in his reign; our ascription of the present bottle to his reign fortifies us in this belief.

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.