Lot 1143
Treasury 1, no. 70 (‘Imperial Embellished-Jade Eggplant ‘)
HK$275,000

Nephrite with artificial colour; not very well hollowed, with a countersunk lip; carved in the form of an eggplant, the fruit with traces of artificial staining on one side, the calyx carved from a separate piece of material
Probably imperial, possibly palace workshops, Beijing, 1736–1810
Height: 6.1 cm (measured at right-angles to the lip) and 6.42 cm (maximum height)
Mouth: 0.4 cm (measuring the cylindrical mouth below the countersinking)
Stopper: jadeite; coral collar

Provenance:
Hugh M. Moss Ltd. (Hong Kong, 1987)

Published:
Kleiner, Yang, and Shangraw 1994, no. 29
Treasury 1, no. 70

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

We believe that as a general rule bottles with stoppers at the top are meant to be viewed with the line across the mouth horizontal, even if it is not made to stand. Standing bottles seem to follow this general rule, and one can assume the same for bottles that do not stand but are meant to be viewed vertically. As sculpture, this bottle unquestionably works best when the mouth is horizontal. The generous bulb of the fruit, culminating in the pointed tip at its end, is very carefully designed for this orientation, which makes the bulk of the fruit most satisfying visually, not only as form, but as a counterpoint to the diagonal striations in the nephrite. The dark green sepals perfectly offset the unbalanced weight of the fruit; some of them curve slightly in one direction or another, others seem to hold the bulb by invisible wires of energy. It may seem fanciful to see so much in a mere eggplant, but the people who made the best snuff bottles, those that also qualify as high art in the Chinese tradition, were not producing mere eggplants, or any other subject merely as subject; they were creating works of art for highly trained aesthetes from a culture that had honed aesthetics to a point of exquisite comprehension over the millennia. Such people would notice these things.

The sculptural power and the masterly control of the medium of this example are unexcelled. The sepals around the fruit are exquisitely well carved and unusually expressive. The lip is so deeply concave that it is essentially a counterbore. This may be a further touch of individuality in this example, or a standard way on this type of bottle to match the seat of an original twig-shaped stopper, now missing.

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.