Lot 1154
Treasury 2, no. 315 (‘The Tongzhi dated Official Cameo’)
HK$212,500

Chalcedony; extremely well hollowed; with a flat lip and recessed convex foot surrounded by a protruding flat foot rim; carved with a partially cameo design on each side, one depicting two carp leaping from turbulent waves towards the moon, which is partly hidden by the upper edges of a formalized cloud, the other with a clump of two lingzhi and long, floppy leaves growing from behind a rocky outcrop with formalized water running around its base, with an inscription in relief draft script Liyu wangyue 鯉魚望月(‘Carp gazing at the moon’) and a raised oval cartouche containing the four seal-script characters Tongzhi nian zhi 同治偰製 (‘Made during the Tongzhi era’)
Official School, possibly imperial, 1862–1874
Height: 5.92 cm
Mouth/lip: 0.85/2.23 cm
Stopper: aquamarine; silver collar

Provenance:
Gerd Lester
Pauline Lester
Sotheby’s, New York, 17 March 1997, lot 188

Published:
Treasury 2, no. 315

This extraordinary documentary snuff bottle is one of the landmarks of chalcedony carving in the field because of its Tongzhi reign mark. Only two known chalcedony bottles bear this mark and both are in this collection. The other is the Suzhou carving, Sale 6, lot 186. (Readers who consult the printed full Bloch catalogue, Treasury of Chinese Snuff Bottles, should be advised that the commentary to the present bottle referred to the Suzhou bottle as no. 192; it is actually no. 379.) Each is also unique for being the only example of their respective groups to bear any sort of credible reign mark. Relief-carved Official School bottles were apparently not originally reign-marked, and even the plain, undecorated examples with Qianlong marks usually acquired them only in the past few decades. Here, however, as with the reign-marked Suzhou bottle, there can be no doubt that the reign-mark was inscribed at the time the bottle was made, forming part of the original design, since it is carved into a relief cartouche specifically designed for the mark. One can, of course, add relief detail to an old stone bottle by reducing all of the surrounding ground, and this has been successfully achieved by one faker, but only quite recently. Since its provenance from the Gerd Lester collection takes it back beyond the recent few years when such a bottle might have been faked with such a late mark, we may also believe in its authenticity. Once that is established, we are presumably looking at an extraordinary lesson in late nineteenth-century technical capacity and style.

The shape is unremarkable for the Official School and could have been made at least a century earlier. The type of design is within the range of earlier Official School bottles, although neither subject appears in this design on any known earlier works, and the carp leaping at the moon is not a standard theme. The technical control of the execution falls below the standards set by the finest of earlier Official School works, and the cutting and finishing where the relief meets the ground plane show signs of carelessness or a lack of ability, and the relief carving itself is not totally under control. Many an earlier Official School bottle could equally be criticised for similar failings, however.

Potentially more indicative of nineteenth-century work is the relative laziness with which the foot was treated. The foot is a recessed convex oval where the greatest extent of the convexity approximately equates to the level of the flat foot rim, meaning that the foot can easily be defined by no more than a sloping trough around the inner foot rim. It is also somewhat carelessly formed, although nothing like as poorly made as some from the school. Otherwise, however, the foot rim is even, confident and with a neat, flat rim.

What is extraordinary, and a salutary lesson in relying too much on the extent and quality of hollowing to determine age, is that the hollowing that follows closely the outer profile is extremely well carved and finished. The only hint of the process left to view is a trace of the initial annular drill-holes cut at a diagonal angle from neck to the furthest extent of the base hollowing, where two circular depressions are still visible. The hollowing here would do credit to any Official School bottle from a century earlier.

The conclusion one may draw is that as late as the Tongzhi era, if the demand warranted excellent hollowing, the skills were there to provide it. Where the artists followed a slightly lower standard, artistically and technically, it was probably because they were seldom called upon to do their best. It might have needed a sustained demand for higher quality to encourage them to raise standards again, and this does not seem to have occurred, not, that is, until the modern period, when rising values have prompted fakers to begin to develop the skills employed on the finest of old snuff bottles.

The big question, of course, remains whether this is an imperial bottle or not. A mark of this kind on a Qianlong product would imply that it was. By the late Qing period, however, protocol was often usurped. Later, as the ability of the central government to control affairs withered in the face of foreign depredations and domestic rebellions, it is not so certain that a five-clawed dragon, the colour yellow, or an imperial reign mark necessarily implied an imperial product. It is possible that the mark, placed in a rather strange manner as part of the decoration rather than on the foot of the bottle or as an adjunct to an imperial inscription, is no more than an indication of the period in which it was made. But we do not know. If the mark still means that the bottle was made for the court, we would have a very rare example of a cameo Official School bottle made for the court and bearing the appropriate reign mark.

Admittedly, the calligraphy of the reign mark is rather poorly written and is obviously not done by a literate calligrapher accustomed to this arcane script; nevertheless, this may indicate nothing more than the falling standards we find widely in the applied arts during the nineteenth century. That aside, by prevailing standards of the late Qing dynasty, the bottle is very impressive.

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.