Lot 144
Treasury6, no. 1451 (‘A Little of Each’)
HK$112,500

Famille rose enamels, white glaze, and beige stoneware slip on brown stoneware; with a flat lip and recessed flat foot surrounded by a convex footrim; painted in slip on one main side with two figures seated at the water’s edge to the right of a rocky promontory growing with trees, three small islands in the right-hand middle ground of the picture, beyond which sloping hills rise and terminate in precipices that face the sun that shines in the upper-left sky, and on the other main side enamelled with flowering lotus plants and grasses; the foot and interior glazed
The Slip Master, Yixing, 1780–1830
Height: 6.19 cm
Mouth/lip: 0.7/1.45 cm
Stopper: jadeite; silver collar

Provenance:
Trojan Collection
Robert Hall (1993)

Published:
Hall 1992, no. 62
Kleiner, Yang, and Shangraw 1994, no. 198
Treasury 6, no. 1451

Exhibited:
Hong Kong Museum of Art, March–June 1994
National Museum of Singapore, November 1994–February 1995

The manner in which these figures are depicted is typical of the Slip Master’s style: scholars sit on bridges or banks, freely drawn with thin arms separated from the body, their tiny heads created by a dab with the point of the brush with sometimes a smaller dab behind to indicate a tied bun of hair. The slip design here was painted on with a brush when the slip was very wet, although it is possible that spatulas or other tools were also used, particularly for thicker areas such as the cliffs and rocks. The final touches were sometimes done with a blade or the sharp end of a spatula. The figures here, for instance, have lines cut through the slip to indicate their belts.

It seems to have been standard to glaze (technically, to enamel) the interior of Yixing snuff bottles, and often the foot as well. The same was true of a large number of drinking cups made at the potteries, which are commonly covered with the same crackled, off-white glaze. While the natural colours of the clay were obviously valued for their decorative qualities, it was felt advisable to line interiors with glaze other than on teapots, where the very slight absorbency of the material was considered beneficial. Teapots were not cleaned vigorously, and the residue of repeated tea making added to the flavour. The opposite was true of snuff, where it was felt preferable to have a glassy, less permeable inner lining. Since Yixing snuff-bottle production began to flourish at the time when there was the beginnings of a gradual shift towards shiny interiors, the prevalence of enamelled interiors could be explained either by the nature of the Yixing clay, by the general new fashion, or both.

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