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Lot Essay
The present bottle belongs to a group of early lacquer bottles that appears to be Imperial and to date from the eighteenth century. The predominant color used on this group was cinnabar red, but occasionally green or black were used as contrasts.
The subject matter, typically figures in a landscape where individuals are in particular groupings with specific attributes, is usually drawn from popular dramas, operas or novels, or from myths and legends. The repetition of what appears to be the same figure on each side indicates the two sides should be read as sequential rather than continuous, and that the two scenes are from the same story.
A clue to the dating and origin of this group may be found in the well-known group of Imperial molded porcelain bottles from the late-Qianlong and Jiaqing periods, some of which obviously imitate cinnabar lacquer bottles, establishing their existence as an Imperial type prior to the 1790s. The shape of this bottle is standard for this group. Two other comparable bottles from the J & J Collection are illustrated in Moss, Graham, Tsang, The Art of the Chinese Snuff Bottle. The J & J Collection, nos. 310 and 311, the latter of which was sold in our Hong Kong rooms, 25 April 2004, lot 815. Three further cinnabar lacquer bottles from this group carved with figural scenes are in the Qing Court Collection in the Palace Museum, Beijing, and are illustrated in Snuff Bottles - The Complete Collection of Treasures of the Palace Museum, nos. 392-95.
The subject matter, typically figures in a landscape where individuals are in particular groupings with specific attributes, is usually drawn from popular dramas, operas or novels, or from myths and legends. The repetition of what appears to be the same figure on each side indicates the two sides should be read as sequential rather than continuous, and that the two scenes are from the same story.
A clue to the dating and origin of this group may be found in the well-known group of Imperial molded porcelain bottles from the late-Qianlong and Jiaqing periods, some of which obviously imitate cinnabar lacquer bottles, establishing their existence as an Imperial type prior to the 1790s. The shape of this bottle is standard for this group. Two other comparable bottles from the J & J Collection are illustrated in Moss, Graham, Tsang, The Art of the Chinese Snuff Bottle. The J & J Collection, nos. 310 and 311, the latter of which was sold in our Hong Kong rooms, 25 April 2004, lot 815. Three further cinnabar lacquer bottles from this group carved with figural scenes are in the Qing Court Collection in the Palace Museum, Beijing, and are illustrated in Snuff Bottles - The Complete Collection of Treasures of the Palace Museum, nos. 392-95.