Lot 1145
Treasury 6, no. 1399 (‘Long-lived Peach’)
HK$23,750

Famille rose enamels on porcelain; moulded in the form of a peach with a stalk and three leaves surrounding the standard snuff-bottle neck; the interior unglazed
Jingdezhen, 1810–1890
Height: 5.95 cm
Mouth/lip: 0.51/0.85 cm
Stopper: famille rose enamels on copper; silver collar

Provenance:
Robert Kleiner (1990)

Published:
Kleiner, Yang, and Shangraw 1994, no. 184
Treasury 6, no. 1399

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

We are assuming that the majority of porcelain bottles in the Bloch Collection were made at Jingdezhen. Ceramics were produced in many parts of China, of course, and there were other main centres of production; but most are well-documented and distinctively different in their paste and usually in their range of glazes and enamels, as well. The two raw materials required for the finest porcelain were conveniently located in different deposits near Jingdezhen, which was the reason for its establishment as China’s main porcelain metropolis since long before the Qing dynasty. According to Rose Kerr, there were some three hundred kilns operating at Jingdezhen during the Daoguang period, and they produced the vast majority of the high-fired white-paste, fine-quality porcelain we see today, one exception being the distinctively different wares made at the Dehua 德化 kilns in Fujian. Dehua is largely irrelevant to the snuff-bottle world, however, for snuff bottles from there are surprisingly rare (see Kleiner 1999, no. 160 for a unique example). A bottle like this, although not typical of the broader range of Jingdezhen wares, is still likely to have been made there.

This peach-shaped bottle is not only formally unusual, but rare in that the enamels are painted directly onto the biscuit without an intervening glaze. The difference is usually evident in the texture of the surface. It is easier to get a smooth, even surface with enamels painted onto a glaze; when they are applied directly to the biscuit, the naturally more textured surface of the porcelain shows through to some extent. Enamelling directly on the biscuit with famille rose enamels defines Kangxi production from the palace workshops at Beijing and was occasionally used thereafter at Jingdezhen, although not often.

Having so little to compare it with, we cannot be any more precise in our dating than to say this bottle could have been made any time from the late Jiaqing into the Guangxu period. It does not help that the popular peach subject is often treated naturalistically, and when an enameller is trying to simulate the satiny, speckled texture of the real fruit, he may not use his customary range of enamel colours in the usual manner.

It is strange that the peach shape does not occur far more often in porcelain snuff bottles. It was popular enough in other materials and is not a difficult form to make in a two-part mould, so given its obvious symbolism of longevity, we might expect far more to have been made than appears to be the case.

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.