Lot 1171
Treasury 6, no. 1191 (‘White Elephant’)
HK$93,750

Famille rose enamels on colourless glaze on porcelain; with a flat lip; moulded in the form of a reclining caparisoned elephant with a vase in the shape of a zun 尊set atop its back on a saddle painted with a blue seat framed by gilt studs and resting on a saddle blanket having a formalized floral diaper design edged with a formalized wave pattern, the zun painted with a design of formalized prunus blossoms on cracked ice, the ends of the blanket, together with its design and tassels, folded beneath the elephant’s body; the base with four spur marks; the lip painted in gold enamel; the inner neck glazed; the interior unglazed
Probably imperial, Jingdezhen, 1780–1800
Height: 1.92 cm
Mouth/lip: 0.62/1.49 cm
Stopper: iron-red, turquoise-blue, and gold enamel on brown and colourless glaze on porcelain, in the form of a formalized chrysanthemum; a possible original for such a bottle and of the mid-Qing period

Provenance:
Private collection, Florida
Eric Stang and Jeffrey Searles, Florida, June 2004

Published:
Treasury 6, no. 1191

A good many moulded porcelain bottles from the mid-Qing period are of animal, vegetable, or figural forms, and many of these were not reign marked. Several of them would have been inventions of the late Qianlong, and this elephant is likely to be one of them, although an early Jiaqing date is equally plausible. Because of their auspicious symbolism, elephants were moderately common subjects in the Qing palaces. They are known from the eighteenth century in nephrite and from late in the Qianlong reign in imperial yellow glass; it seems highly unlikely that the emperor would not have thought of moulding them in porcelain the moment the art form evolved to the point of producing free-standing animal forms. Nothing about the enamels or modelling here would preclude a late-Qianlong date.

Several different moulds produced of this small reclining white elephant are discussed, along with another example, in Moss, Graham, and Tsang 1993, under no. 237, which is very similar to this piece, but from a different mould. Another is in the Bragge Album (see fig. 1 inTreasury 6under this bottle; for the album, seeMoss, Graham, and Tsang 1993, no. 481, and JICSBS, Winter 2006). Bragge seems to have had a second version, however, since no. 63 in the 1880 edition of his Bibliotheca Nicotiana is listed as ‘Elephant kneeling; pink striped howdah and neck of bottle gilded; pink ivory stopper’. The illustration hardly shows a bottle with a pink striped ‘howdah’, by which the cataloguer must have meant the zun-shaped vase, and the stopper appears to be coral and gilt bronze, not ‘pink ivory’, although staining ivory to a coral colour was a known way of imitating the more precious material. Others versions are in Stevens 1976, no. 308 and 310; Hugh M. Moss Ltd 1970, no. 319; Racehlle R. Holden 1994, no. 58 (with a more elaborately decorated saddle blanket); China Guardian, Beijing, 24 October 1996, lot 2; Sotheby’s, London, 14 November 2000, lot 145; Sotheby’s, London, 23 March 1988, lot 38, and Christie’s, New York, 22 March 1999, lot 50. An elephant bottle that has retained its original stopper, identical to that of the present example, was in Hong Kong Auctioneers & Estate Agency, 12 June 1993, lot 313. Other elephant moulds are also recorded, including a more elaborate, standing beast set on a small stand imitating wood (see Fuller 1970, pl. 37) and a different standing model (China Guardian, Beijing, 24 October 1996, lot 3). Another was in the Eric Young Collection (Sotheby’s, London, 24 April 1989, lot 351).

This example is among the finest known and is in pristine condition, with all the gold and iron-red enamels still intact, which is unusual since most early moulded porcelains show obvious signs of use and wear. It gives us an insight into how such bottles would have looked straight from the kiln.

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.