28 - A BLUE AND WHITE PORCELAIN ‘BUDDHIST LIONS’ SNUFF BOTTLE

A BLUE AND WHITE PORCELAIN ‘BUDDHIST LIONS’ SNUFF BOTTLE JINGDEZHEN, 1790-1850 To Be Sold Without Reserve Of shouldered octagonal faceted form, painted with a continuous design of eight Buddhist lions with one brocaded ball on a ground of flowering peonies, the neck with a band of circles enclosed between two lines, the foot painted with one further Buddhist lion Height: 4.8cm Provenance: A Private English Collection Clare Chu, Los Angeles, October 2003 Hugh Moss (HK) Ltd, 22nd October 2007, (a copy of the original invoice available) Blue and white porcelain snuff bottles were first made in the Qianlong period and became particularly popular in the nineteenth century, when the habit of snuffing had spread to the population as a whole and a massive demand from this market required a range of functional, decorative and relatively cheap snuff bottles, ideally met by the porcelain production process at Jingdezhen. This appears to come from the earlier part of that phase and is unusual in its shape, presumably inspired by faceted bottles of the eighteenth-century Court, and its decoration with the Buddhist lions set against a densely painted ground 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