178 - A BLACK-GROUND PORCELAIN SNUFF BOTTLE IMPERIAL KILNS, JINGDEZHEN, DAOGUANG IRON-RED MARK AND OF THE PERIOD, 1821-1850

A BLACK-GROUND PORCELAIN SNUFF BOTTLE IMPERIAL KILNS, JINGDEZHEN, DAOGUANG IRON-RED MARK AND OF THE PERIOD, 1821-1850 To Be Sold Without Reserve Of cylindrical form with conical shoulders funnelling towards a cylindrical neck with a small, rounded upper lip rim and recessed circular foot, painted with a continuous garden scene in which a scholar, victorious in the Imperial Examinations returns to his estate where he is attended by two concubines while a third, in the branches of a tree, hands him a spray of kui flowers she has just picked from the tree, the scene bordered by formalized leaf lappets around the base and a formalized petal border beneath the shoulders, the shoulders with a design of blossoms on cracked ice, the lip painted gold, the foot with a four-character mark in iron-red seal script Daoguang nian zhi (`Made during the Daoguang period’) Height: 6.2cm Provenance: Sotheby’s, New York, 17th September 1996, lot 149 Hugh Moss (HK) Ltd, 26th September 1996, (a copy of the original invoice available) There is a small group of these fat cylindrical snuff bottles in porcelain made for the Court during the Daoguang period, several of which are in black enamel reserve, with the design left in white against a black ground, as here, an otherwise unusual form of decoration on porcelain, although reserved designs in other colours are common enough from the Daoguang reign 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