拍品专文
Magpies are a popular motif found in Chinese art as they embody the auspicious wishes for good luck, happiness and marital bliss. Magpies are often depicted perched on prunus trees, providing the rebus xishang meishao ‘may your joy reach up to the top of your eyebrows’. The depiction of a rabbit with lingzhi, both referencing longevity, is a considerably rarer motif, although it is also found on a Yongzheng-marked enamelled copper snuff bottle, illustrated in Lifting the Spirit and Body: The Art and Culture of Snuff Bottles, Taipei, 2012, p. 114. The combination of these auspicious motifs is extremely rare and does not seem to appear on earlier or other contemporary examples.