8 - A RARE BLUE AND WHITE PORCELAIN ‘MEIPING’ SHAPED SNUFF BOTTLE, JINGDEZHEN KILNS, 1800-1880

A RARE BLUE AND WHITE PORCELAIN ‘MEIPING’ SHAPED SNUFF BOTTLE, JINGDEZHEN KILNS, 1800-1880 To Be Sold Without Reserve Of meiping (`prunus-blossom vase’) form with a recessed circular foot, painted with a continuous scene of a waterside landscape with distant towering peaks, with three sages seated on a small island in the foreground beneath a clump of pine trees growing from the nearby land Height: 8cm Provenance: Eumorphopolous Collection (no. D.12), applied paper label J. J. Lally & Co. New York Hugh Moss (HK) Ltd, 16th July 1995, (a copy of the original invoice available) This is apparently a unique subject for a blue and white snuff bottle. Sages seated in ideal landscape settings are common enough motifs, but there seems something specific about the three sages seated, strangely, on a small island suggesting that some specific meeting or event is intended Eumorphopolous was one of the pioneer European collectors of Chinese art, collecting a wide range of three- dimensional arts and publishing a massive, multi-volume catalogue of his collection. Although the blue and white porcelains are given D numbers in this catalogue, D. 12 is clearly a different piece, much earlier and not a snuff bottle according to the catalogue. Either the number was re-used after the catalogue appeared, which seems unlikely, or perhaps a number off the listed piece has at some time been transferred to this snuff bottle, although why anyone would want to do this is a mystery. A question mark must remain over the provenance of this bottle, however, due to the discrepancy Ω This Lot was imported from outside of the UK, under the Temporary Admission regime 5% import VAT will be charged on the ‘hammer” and 20% VAT will be charged on the ‘buyer’s premium