67 - A ‘FAMILLE-ROSE’ AND GILT PURSE-FORM ‘FLOWER AND POEM’ SNUFF BOTTLE JINGDEZHEN IMPERIAL KILNS, DATED QIANLONG BINGSHEN YEAR, CORRESPONDING TO 1776

A ‘FAMILLE-ROSE’ AND GILT PURSE-FORM ‘FLOWER AND POEM’ SNUFF BOTTLE JINGDEZHEN IMPERIAL KILNS, DATED QIANLONG BINGSHEN YEAR, CORRESPONDING TO 1776 To Be Sold Without Reserve Of rigid-purse form, the pear-shaped simulated purse with a raised rib running from two loop handles high on the shoulders down the narrow sides and under the foot, with a cylindrical neck, wide mouth and convex lip, painted on one main side with a panel of a garden scene with blossoming branches growing from a grassy, foliated ground with two rock formations, and on the other with an Imperial poem entitled ‘Spring’s-end Peony (Shaoyao ) in black clerical script, preceded, also in clerical script, by the date (‘Third 芍藥 丙申三月 month of the bingshen year’) and followed by two seals in vermillion, the first Qian , with the trigram standing for the initial character of the reign title, and long ( ) the latter in positive seal script, the panels surrounded 隆 by a brown ground enamelled with gold formalized floral scrolls, the interior unglazed Height: 4.7cm Width: 5cm Provenance: Robert Kleiner, 2005 Hugh Moss (HK) Ltd, 20th February 2007, (a copy of the original invoice available) Throughout the Qianlong reign, porcelain bottles at Jingdezhen were inscribed, along with many other wares, with poems written by the Qianlong Emperor. This practise can be traced back to the 1740s when Tang Ying oversaw the kilns and surviving instructions from the emperor to his kiln-director contain instructions for his poems to be used in this manner. There are a number of surviving examples. The practise continued long after the death of Tang in 1756, and this is one from later in the emperor’s reign. In this very rare case we can be sure that the date refers to the date of production of the snuff bottle, not of the poem, since the poem was known to have been written much earlier, in 1733 – see below. This bottle is of a particularly rare shape for such Imperial poem bottles, being one of the earlier examples of a simulated, official purse – a shape that continued to be used into the nineteenth century. The enamels are typical of the later Qianlong reign, as is the painting, and remain in good condition with the exception of the gold enamel on the brown ground on each main side where the greatest amount of wear would be expected from the constant removal and replacement of the stopper. The Qianlong Emperor was in the habit of substituting the first character of his reign title with the three lines of the trigram qian, particularly on works of art of particular personal interest to him. The poem is recorded in Yuzhi Leshantang quanji dingben (By Imperial Order, Definitive 御製樂善堂全集定本 Edition of the Complete Works from the Hall of Benevolence [Writings of the Qianlong Emperor]) (Siku quanshu ed.)28:9a. Before accession to the throne, the prince who was to become the Qianlong Emperor owned the Leshan tang, and wrote this particular poem in 1733 in the Yongzheng reign – see Peter Y. K. Lam, ‘Tang Ying (1682- 1756). The Imperial Factory Superintendent at Jingdezhen,’ TOCS, Vol. 63, 1998-1999, pp. 70 and 71. It is entitled ‘Herbaceous Peony’ (shaoyao - – also known as ‘Spring’s-end peony’) 芍藥 繁紅艶紫殿春餘 Lush reds and gorgeous purples flourish last at Spring’s end, 第一揚州種色殊 The most unusual kinds of colours found in Yangzhou. 逞盡風流還自恨 Though she flaunts her romantic attractions, she still blames herself 被人強喚是花奴 For having people force her to bear the name ‘Flower Slave Girl’! The ‘Spring’s end’ peony is a variety of herbaceous peony which can grow with branches up to 80cm or so in length. Strangely, the blossoming branches on the other main side of the bottle do not appear to be herbaceous peonies, but a blossoming fruit tree of some sort, suggesting that by the time this bottle was produced the original match of the poem to the subject had become unnecessary. We know what Jingdezhen enamellers thought the herbaceous peony of the poem looked like from bottles remaining in the Imperial Collection, where earlier examples exist. A set of twenty remains in the Taipei Palace Museum (Snuff Bottles in the Collection of the National Palace Museum, p. 119) and two more, of a different shape, but also earlier are in ibid., p. 118, while another, of the same set, is in the Beijing Gugong (Gugong bowuyuan cang wewu zhenpin daji, Biyanhu, p. 207, no. 317). For another similar bottle from this series, see Sotheby’s New York, Important Chinese Art, 22nd November 2021, lot 68 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