Lot 1107
Treasury 2, no. 281 (‘The Skulking Monkey Agate’)
HK$81,250

Agate; irregularly hollowed; with a concave lip and recessed, convex oval foot surrounded by a protruding, broad, flat foot rim; the natural markings in the stone edited to create a scene of a monkey beside a rocky outcrop and a large tree with a bee flying beneath its branches
Official School, 1770–1880
Height: 6.17 cm
Mouth/lip: 0.75/2.27 and 2.20 cm (oval)
Stopper: coral, carved in relief with a chi dragon; silver collar

Illustration:
Watercolour by Peter Suart

Provenance:
Maxime Hermanos (1979)
Gerd Lester (1986)

Published:
JICSBS, March 1976, front cover
Silver Kris, October 1981, p. 33
Treasury 2, no. 281

Much of the design on this bottle is the result of editing a thin plane of dark material running through the bottle. Even the tree trunk has been edited, leaving an undulating surface, and the monkey is almost entirely contrived, whether by cutting away the thin layer of dark material to make facial features, toes, fingers, etc. or by undulating the surface of the bottle to bring out the required silhouette.

One intriguing aspect of this bottle has not been edited in any way. The rocky bank against which the compelling image of the monkey is set continues around one narrow side of the bottle to the back and breaks up into a series of irregular lines of thin, dark colour, which are, quite by chance, a shadow equivalent of Suzhou rockwork with its repeated lines of serrations.

The hollowing, which is careless inside the shoulders, and the recessed convex foot suggest that this is probably an example from the first half of the nineteenth century although, as always, we have left a wider dating range to accommodate our still shallow understanding of the school.

The similarity in style between this bottle and Sale 5, lot 36 (also with monkeys) suggests that they may be by the same hand or workshop, but this may be no more than the commonality of subject matter and the use of the silhouette or shadow technique. However, the hollowing is also carelessly done on that bottle, particularly into the shoulders, and the foot is a similar recessed convex oval, so they have more in common than just the design.

Compensation for the less painstaking hollowing is readily found here in the power of the image, its simplicity and the stark contrast of the unusually dark markings on an even, pale grey ground. It is also found in the tree, which is splendidly powerful and natural looking. Many of the more impressive silhouette designs occur on bottles that are irregularly hollowed and have lazier detailing of the foot. It seems that by the nineteenth century this type had come firmly into vogue, and the artists were continuing to meet demand by producing masterpieces, but with lower standards of hollowing and detailing than would have been acceptable earlier.

Maxime Hermanos was a New York based collector who, by the early 1970s, had formed an extensive collection of ceramics, with a particular fondness for coral-glazed porcelain, and other Chinese works of art. The snuff bottles that she owned were of less interest to her than her ceramics, and so from time to time she would part with them, sometimes in exchange for ceramics.

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.