Footnotes

• Treasury 7, no. 1673
  
  象牙雕白蛇傳鼻煙壺
  宮廷大師，日本，1854～1910
  
  A carved ivory 'Legend of the White Snake' snuff bottle
  
  Ivory; with a flat lip and recessed foot surrounded by a protruding flattened footrim; carved with a continuous illustration of a scene from The Legend of the White Snake, the two heroines in a boat, passing between two groups of three men each standing on dry land, while four immortals float on clouds above them, one holding a sword, one a ruyi-sceptre, Lü Dongbin with a sword on his back and holding a flywhisk, and the fourth with his hands together in an attitude of prayer beneath the folds of his robe, while a demon, waist-deep in the turbulent water, holds a large dish of what appears to be fruit above his head, with wisps of formalized clouds above; the neck and outer footrim both with a band of raised dots, the foot inscribed in regular script, Qianlong nian zhi (Made during the Qianlong period) in a rectangular cartouche defined by twinned lines
  Imperial Master, Japan, 1854–1910
  Height: 6.4 cm
  Mouth/lip: 0.72/1.95 cm
  Stopper: ivory, carved in the shape of a melon or gourd with integral finial; 1920– 1986
  
  Condition: numerous fine age lines; repair to a small area of the outer lip wrapping round from the top to the underside of lip; two chips on the oar, two along the side of the boat, and one at the left side front of the canopy; small chip near the base of the undulating cloud, another chip to the left of this on the tip of the rocks; the figure on the left of the three standing on clouds with some repair work to the side of his face; one small chip to the clouds above him; the facial features of some of the figures smoothed away with age. Stopper: some nibbles to the rim
  
  Provenance:
  R. Gordon-Smith (prior to 1918)
  Glendining & Co., London, 18 and 19 October 1920, lot 276
  Lydia Tovey
  Sotheby's, London, 28 April 1987, lot 652
  
  Published:
  Kleiner 1987, no. 188
  JICSBS, Summer 1987, p. 27
  Kleiner 1995, no. 318
  JICSBS, Autumn 2000, front cover
  Treasury 7, no. 1673
  
  Exhibited:
  Sydney L. Moss Ltd, London, October 1987
  British Museum, London, June–October 1995
  Israel Museum, Jerusalem, July–November 1997
  
  As explained in Moss 2007, a group of ivory snuff bottles formerly thought to come from imperial workshops in Beijing has been reassigned to a Japanese carver, for whom Moss coined the name 'Imperial Master', working between the 'opening' of Japan in 1854 and perhaps the first decade of the twentieth century. The earliest example we can trace back so far is the one in the Chester Beatty Collection (Arts of Asia, March–April 1988, p. 61, no. 16). It was already recorded in a handwritten list of 1914 while Beatty was collecting in America; he moved to Ireland only in 1950.
  
  The previous belief that these ivory bottles inspired a series of copies in moulded porcelain bottles from Jingdezhen in the mid-Qing period has proven wrong. In fact, quite the opposite happened. It was the imperial moulded porcelain bottles of the late- Qianlong and Jiaqing periods that provided the inspiration for the Japanese output of the post-1854 period—an inspired choice by the Japanese carvers. The moulded porcelain bottles are formally ideal and decoratively intriguing when translated into ivory, and they were excellent models of Chinese style and subject matter for the Japanese artists.
  
  The ivory versions have an advantage over their porcelain equivalents insofar as wear and discolouring are positive on ivory, softly colouring and smoothing the monochrome relief detail and greatly enhancing the appeal of the material, whereas wear on porcelain is generally a negative factor. The reattributed bottles still have the same high artistic quality and are still among the most spectacular snuff bottles in our collections. If their appeal is diminished, it is only psychologically—an important aspect of aesthetics in general, but not one that impacts upon the material work of art. If we had recognized them as Japanese in the 1960s, when they were first identified as a coherent group, they would have consistently been among our most sought-after snuff bottles.
  
  Although the Imperial Master took his inspiration from moulded porcelain bottles for many of his finest works, many more are in the general style of moulded porcelain bottles without having specific models (at least among surviving exemplars). He may have started by copying his model exactly, but once he had mastered the art and grasped the style, he seemed to branch out to produce his own range of subjects. There can be no doubt that the Imperial Master was an artist of extraordinary talents, and it is typical of such artists that they cannot be confined long to making perfect reproductions of other media.
  
  This is one of the most accurate copies of a particular moulded porcelain bottle. Fortunately, one of the originals exists, and it is in the Bloch Collection. (See Sale 3, lot 91.) This ivory version is copied faithfully from the porcelain original except for the use of a raised-dot border around neck and foot, and even this border is taken from other moulded porcelains of the Jiaqing period (or, more likely, from another moulded porcelain series of the same subject and design, but with the raised dots). The main change is the reign mark on the foot, where the original Jiaqing mark in seal script has been replaced by a Qianlong mark in regular script. The reign mark should have alerted us to the Japanese origin long ago, had we been paying attention. The calligraphy of the marks is poor; but beyond that, the positioning of the marks confirms that they were not written at the palace workshops. As a general rule, reign marks on Chinese works of art, certainly from the Qianlong period, are placed so that when turning the piece from its intended primary view in order to read the reign mark, it is the correct way up. Reign marks on genuine imperial snuff bottles of the Qianlong reign are never legible the right way up when turning the bottle over from the narrow sides; even if the only designs are on the narrow sides, the bottle is still correctly orientated for turning the bottle to view the mark only when one of the main sides faces the viewer. It is not clear whether this is simply intuitive or involves a moral imperative to avoid exposing the imperial designation lying on its side, but the Imperial Master was apparently oblivious to this small but telling point of etiquette. When following the original moulded porcelain bottles, he occasionally put the mark sideways, as he did here and on Sale 2, lot 143.
  
  象牙雕白蛇傳鼻煙壺
  
  象牙；平唇 ，斂底，突出弄平的圈足；雕通體白素貞和小青泛船，岸上空中還有別的人物，拿著麈尾背著寶劍的大概是呂洞賓，底書 "乾隆年製"，外加雙圈
  仿御製品大師，日本，1854–1910
  高﹕ 6.4 厘米
  口經/唇經： 0.72/1.95 厘米
  蓋：象牙，雕瓜形，與頂飾為一體，1920– 1986
  
  狀態敘述：積年累月，纖細裂縫不少，唇緣有修補過的地方，很小，缺口有櫓，二、船舷上緣，二、艇上敞亭前左， 一、 曲升雲頭靠下端，一、其左之石頭尖端，一、在雲頭上左邊修補臉的人，一、其上邊的雲，一；有的人臉因歲月積累有所柔滑了。蓋﹕緣邊呈咬痕
  
  來源﹕
  R. Gordon-Smith (1918年以前)
  Glendining & Co., London, 18 and 19 October 1920, 拍賣品號 276
  Lydia Tovey
  倫敦蘇富比, 1987年4月28日，拍賣品號 652
  
  文獻﹕
  Kleiner 1987, 編號188
  《國際中國鼻煙壺協會的學術期刊》, 1987年夏期，頁 27
  Kleiner 1995, 編號318
  《國際中國鼻煙壺協會的學術期刊》, 2000年秋期， 封面
  Treasury 7, 編號1673
  
  展覽﹕
  Sydney L. Moss Ltd, London, October 1987
  大英博物館，1995年6月～10月
  Israel Museum, 耶路撒冷，1997年7月～月11月
  
  說明﹕
  這是完全符合祖本的模製陶瓷鼻煙壺。那祖本之一例就是第三場拍賣會， 拍賣品號 91 。本壺唯一的差別是頸和圈足的一帶橛子形飾紋。就是那個一帶橛子形飾紋，也是模擬其他嘉慶模製鼻煙壺。比較顯明的改變是底部以轉移90角度的乾隆年款代替了嘉慶年款。 屬乾隆朝的御製鼻煙壺真品，只有從壺的正面來看，才能讀出年款；從壺的傾面來看，是讀不出來的。仿御製品大師顯然不知道這個規則。參見第二場拍賣會，拍賣品號 143.
  
  
  
  

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Category: Asian Art / Chinese Works of Art

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