Lot 75

Lot 75
Treasury 6, no. 1322

A famille rose porcelain ‘scholar’ snuff bottle

(‘Burning the Midnight Candle’)

Famille rose enamels on colourless glaze on porcelain; with a convex lip and recessed, flat foot surrounded by a protruding, convex footrim; painted with a continuous landscape scene showing a scholar on one main side seated and reading by candlelight in an open pavilion within a walled court surrounded by rocks and blossoming trees, his servant outside the gate pointing towards the sky, a blossoming tree, bamboo, and two rocks on the other main side, which includes an inscription in black regular script that tells us what is happening in the night sky; the foot inscribed in iron-red seal script, Daoguang nian zhi (‘Made during the Daoguang period’); the lip, inner neck, and interior glazed
Imperial kilns, Jingdezhen, 1821–1850
Height: 5.7 cm
Mouth/lip: 0.7/1.62 cm
Stopper: turquoise; pearl finial; gilt-silver collar

Lot 75 Provenance:
Robert Kleiner (1992)

Published:
Kleiner 1995, no. 214
Chen Tao 2002, p. 20, no. 32
Treasury 6, no. 1322

Exhibited:
British Museum, London, June–October 1995
Israel Museum, Jerusalem, July–November 1997

Lot 75 Commentary
This charming scene of a scholar ‘burning the midnight oil’ on a spring night is one of the many produced in multiple sets during the Daoguang period, some with minor changes in the composition, others of different shapes, but all with the Daoguang reign mark and part of imperial production.

The famille rose palette comes into its full glory with this sort of subject, where a broad range of colours can be used for the different areas of the scholar’s home, the rocks, ground, and various trees, many of them in full bloom with pink blossoms, denoting the springtime. There are, as so often, small details painted in white enamel, augmenting the white ground that also serves as a white pigment by simply being left blank. The two, together, can be used to powerful effect. The white walls inside the scholar’s studio, for instance, are unpainted white ground, while the papered window through which the moon shines is painted with white enamel (with blue latticework), giving two quite different textures that help to separate the two.

The painting on the series of bottles of this subject varies, but only within a narrow range. This is among the finest. It has a more detailed design than many, with the available space filled more elegantly. It is also in excellent condition, so all of these qualities can be appreciated. Enamelled porcelain bottles distributed in large quantities as gifts were likely to be used, not hidden away, because of the honour they represented, and many are quite worn. It is only when one sees one as fine as this and in kiln condition that we appreciate the true appeal of Daoguang imperial enamelled porcelain snuff bottles.

The inscription is a brief couplet describing the night. It is an excerpt from Qiusheng fu (Rhapsody on the sounds of autumn) by the eminent Song-dynasty writer Ouyang Xiu (1007–1072) It is taken from the response of Ouyang Xiu’s boy attendant when he reports to his master the scene he has seen outside the house:

The stars and moon glisten brightly;
The Milky Way is in the sky.

For an inside-painted snuff bottle with the subject, and further details, see Ma Zengshan 1997, pp. 38–39. Three others of this design on porcelain remain in the imperial collection in Beijing (Li Jiufang 2002, nos. 336, 339 and 362, of varying shapes, the last a rare compressed egg shape). Others are in Moss 1971a, no. 300; Sotheby’s, New York, 1 July 1985, lot 3, from the Kardos Collection, and Low 2002, no. 173.