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Lot Essay
For an extensive discussion on the Imperial Palace enamel workshops in Beijing, see Moss, Graham, Tsang, The Art of the Chinese Snuff Bottle, The J & J Collection, pp. 268-295.
It is extremely rare to find an enamel on copper snuff bottle with an inscription incorporated into the design. The inscription here refers to the subject of a pair of quails beneath ripe millet sprays. Two quails standing under stalks of ripe millet was a particularly popular subject at Court during the eighteenth century. The subject appears on a set of Imperial Jiaqing-marked porcelain bottles illustrated in Chinese Snuff Bottles in the Collection of the National Palace Museum, no. 94, and on the Imperial enamel and coral bottle in the Baur Collection illustrated by B. Stevens in The Collector's Book of Chinese Snuff Bottles, no. 1032, which can now be dated to the Yongzheng period. An auspicious rebus also appears to be implied, since the Chinese character for "quail" (an) has the same sound as the character for "peace" and the ear of grain is a pun for "year" (sui), the combination suggesting a wish for peace year after year. The three heads of grain form a desire for an excellent harvest as well.
It is extremely rare to find an enamel on copper snuff bottle with an inscription incorporated into the design. The inscription here refers to the subject of a pair of quails beneath ripe millet sprays. Two quails standing under stalks of ripe millet was a particularly popular subject at Court during the eighteenth century. The subject appears on a set of Imperial Jiaqing-marked porcelain bottles illustrated in Chinese Snuff Bottles in the Collection of the National Palace Museum, no. 94, and on the Imperial enamel and coral bottle in the Baur Collection illustrated by B. Stevens in The Collector's Book of Chinese Snuff Bottles, no. 1032, which can now be dated to the Yongzheng period. An auspicious rebus also appears to be implied, since the Chinese character for "quail" (an) has the same sound as the character for "peace" and the ear of grain is a pun for "year" (sui), the combination suggesting a wish for peace year after year. The three heads of grain form a desire for an excellent harvest as well.