Lot 1119
Treasury 7, no. 1504 (‘Strange Couplet’)
HK$100,000

Gourd and softwood; with a flat lip and recessed flat foot surrounded by a protruding convex foot rim; from a three-part primary mould, with a couplet inscribed in relief regular script on each main side, the narrow sides with vertical ribs; the inner neck lined with softwood; the lip made from a separate section of gourd
Probably imperial, attributable to the palace workshops, Beijing, 1770–1850
Height: 6.44 cm
Mouth/lip: 0.58/1.63 cm (with slight protuberances where the rib of the mould joint on the narrow sides meets the lip)
Stopper: coral, carved as a bat flying across a fruiting peach branch with leaves

Provenance:
James Gleeson and Frank O’Keefe Collection (1980)
Sotheby’s, London, 6 June 1980, lot 209
Trojan Collection
Robert Hall (1993)

Published:
Hall 1995, no. 72
Treasury 7, no. 1504

No other example of this mould is known, although a very similar bottle with a different inscription was in the Alice B. McReynolds Collection (Sotheby’s, New York, 31 October 1984, lot 141). This is constructed in the same manner as Sale 7, lot 160. A feature of moulded gourds grown into primary wood moulds is the tendency to leave space between some of the mould sections to allow the circulation of air; this creates a bulge that can be incorporated formally into the design. In this case, the space was left between the two main parts of the mould forming the body of the bottle and the small, flat section shaping the foot, resulting in a bulging foot rim. The same concept may be at work with the vertical ribs on the narrow sides here, although they are extremely even and may have been created by carving a negative groove into the point where the two halves of the mould joined; the foot is less even, suggesting that it was allowed to grow freely. Like Sale 7, lot 160, an unusual feature of this bottle is that instead of a mouth being added in a contrasting material, the inner neck has been fitted with a thick section of softwood drilled through to provide access, upon which has been glued a flat section of gourd perfectly matching the shape of the lip, including the two ribs of the narrow sides. This is a rare method of detailing the neck.

The couplet on the two sides of the bottle may be translated:

One’s eyes are filled with orioles and blossoms:
spring is a glorious time;
By a half-open window, the dream a crane would have:
a flavour pure and unique.

The two lines present contrasting visions: one line depicts a flourishing spring season; the other is redolent of the austere poetry of the craftsmen-poets of the ninth century, a few Song dynasty monks, and several minor poets of the Southern Song. The ‘crane dream’ is associated with Daoist-type transcendence, and ‘a half-open window’ is usually seen in the context of moonlight or bamboo and scenes of quiet purity. It is almost as if the snuff bottle were designed to refract two important aesthetic styles within the Chinese culture, rather than to constitute a unified poetic statement. On the other hand, the language of both lines harks back to the arias (sanqu 散曲) of the Yuan dynasty. ‘Spring is a glorious time’, in particular, recalls these lines by the playwright and poet Guan Hanqing 關漢卿 (1250s – 1320s): Sishi chun fugui, wanwu jiu fengliu 四時春富貴，萬物酒風流 (Of the four seasons, spring is the glorious one; Of the myriad things, wine is the romantic one). And half-open windows and dreams of cranes appear in many arias, as well (though they are not exclusive to Yuan poetry).

In order to make the seven characters on each main side fill the circular space, the designer has arranged them visually in a circle, but they are to be read in three columns; the middle column of three characters is to be read first, then the right-hand column of two characters, and finally the left-hand column of two characters (for the first line, that would be 滿眼鶯 | 花春 | 富貴 Filling the eye orioles and | flowers: spring | glorious). This is somewhat unusual, and unless one is familiar with the diction, it is tempting to look for other ways to read the columns, such as from left to right (right to left, the normal order, doesn’t work at all), but although 富貴 | 滿眼鶯 | 花春 (Glory | filling the eye: oriole-and- | blossom springtime) and the corresponding reading of the other side of the bottle make sense, the tonal pattern of the syllables ceases to have the euphony of regulated verse. Metrical regulation is not required—so-called ‘ancient-style verse’ ignores it and even regulated verse (also called ‘recent-style verse’—these terms arose with the perfection of regulated metre in the Tang dynasty) can use unregulated lines to achieve particular effects—but there is a strong tendency in isolated couplets used for decorative effects to favour metrical regulation. This, by the way, is how we know which side of the bottle to read first: regulated verse requires the rhyme—which comes in the second line of a couplet—to be in the even tone. Gui 貴 is in the category of ‘deflected tones’ and qi 奇 is in the ‘even tone’ category. Therefore the order of the lines is as in our translation and cannot be reversed.

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.