Footnotes

• Treasury 6, no. 1071
  
  玻璃畫琺瑯西洋仕女鼻煙壺
  御製品，北京宮廷造辦處，藍彩「乾隆年製」楷款，1736～1760
  
  A 'famille-rose' enamelled glass 'European-subject' snuff bottle
  
  Famille-rose enamels on translucent white glass; with a flat lip and recessed, slightly convex foot surrounded by a protruding convex footrim, with raised rounded rectangular panels on each of the four sides; painted on the two main-side panels with European subjects, one of a young woman with a basket of flowers over her left arm, the corner of a building behind her, and the other with a young woman holding a goblet and standing beside a tall, circular stand with lathe-turned legs on which a bowl of fruit, including a Buddha's-hand fruit, is set, an architectural column behind her; the two narrow-side panels painted in ruby red with Chinese landscape scenes, one with a riverside village, the other with an open pavilion set on a riverbank beneath trees; the frame contained within formalized, floral swags, the panels surrounded by a yellow enamel ground painted with an iron-red, scrolling, formalized floral design, the shoulders with a band of scrolling, interlocking, formalized floral design, including lingzhi, linked by rings beneath a neck band of formalized petals; the foot inscribed in blue regular script Qianlong nian zhi ('Made during the Qianlong period')
  Imperial, palace workshops, Beijing, 1736–1760
  Height: 8.07 cm
  Mouth/lip: 0.86/1.49 cm
  Stopper: mother-of-pearl; coral collar
  
  Condition: tiny nibbles to inner lip; tiny chip out of yellow enamel framing of one narrow-side panel; some enamels pitted, but not obtrusive; some scratches and abrasions from wear, but not obtrusive. General relative condition: excellent. Pearl stopper illustrated in Treasury 6 broken and replaced with mother-of-pearl cabochon
  
  Provenance:
  Unidentified Hong Kong dealer (prior to 1975)
  B. T. Lyons
  Sotheby's, London, 20 April 1982, lot 64
  Mei Ling Collection
  Sotheby's, New York, 15 March 1984, lot 73 (front cover illustration)
  Ashkenazie, San Francisco, (1987)
  
  Published:
  Arts of Asia, July-August 1982, p. 133
  JICSBS, Spring 1984, p. ii
  Orientations, June 1984, p. 64
  JICSBS, Summer 1984, p. 30
  Christie's Review of the Season, 1983–84, p. 388
  Arts of Asia, September–October 1990, p. 90, fig. 1c
  Kleiner, Yang, and Shangraw 1994, no. 14
  Kleiner 1994a, plate 3
  Kleiner 1995, no. 23
  JICSBS, Autumn 2000, p. 15, fig. 50
  Treasury 6, no. 1071
  
  Exhibited:
  Creditanstalt, Vienna, May–June 1993
  Hong Kong Museum of Art, March–June 1994
  National Museum of Singapore, November 1994–February 1995
  British Museum, London, June–October 1995
  Israel Museum, Jerusalem, July–November 1997
  
  
  The largest snuff bottle of all recorded palace enamels on glass, this is set apart by the distinctly European, elaborate trompe l'oeil frames around all four panels. The main panels are of European subjects, while the subsidiary ones are Chinese landscapes, but, quite apart from the main subject, we can be certain of considerable European influence here. Even without their facial features and curly, pale-coloured hair, these figures would be recognized as European women. Chinese women would never be depicted under normal circumstances in such revealing garments. Are these foreigners representative of the wanton behaviour the Chinese often attributed to the women of strange cultures? Or is it simply a mark of sophistication and class to capture images of Europeans in their native element and fix them within the confines of a miniature painting?
  
  Certain Chinese features are introduced, such as the basket one woman holds and the tall, circular table beside which the other stands, which is based on a standard Chinese incense stand (designed to hold the three essential components of an incense set: burner, powder box, and small vase to hold incense tools). The designer, however, while using a typically Chinese piece of furniture, gave it lathe-turned legs entirely in European style. Was the designer a missionary artist producing a design to please his Chinese masters, complete with familiar Chinese furniture in the foreign setting; or a Chinese designer automatically adding an essential piece of native furniture to the design, but trying to make it look in keeping with the Western subject matter?
  
  European influence is even apparent in the Chinese scenes of the narrow-side panels. Although they are typical Chinese landscape scenes, the central clump of trees on one of them, with their straight trunks and the upper branches of a bare tree beyond, hint at European influence from either the designer or the enameller. Even the formalized petals at the neck, based upon the standard broad, repeated lotus-petals that appear so frequently on Buddhist figural images, resemble tufts of helmet feathers from a European military uniform. The influence of the missionaries in the court arts of glassmaking and enamelling (particularly on metal and glass, which were arts introduced from the West) was considerable during the first half of the eighteenth century, and when this bottle was made, European and Chinese court artists worked side by side at the palace workshops.
  
  玻璃畫琺瑯西洋仕女鼻煙壺
  
  透亮白地畫琺瑯；平唇 ，微凸斂底，突出凸面圈足，四面皆具凸起長方開光，二正面開光畫西洋仕女畫像，二側面繪胭脂紅色山水景致，開光周圍黃地畫卷枝葉紋，底書藍彩 "乾隆年製" 楷款
  御製品，宮廷作坊，北京，1736–1760
  高﹕ 8.07 厘米
  口經/唇經： 0.86/1.49 厘米
  蓋： 珍珠母；珊瑚座
  
  狀態敘述：唇內沿呈微小的咬痕，一惻面開光有微小的缺口，琺瑯料有些點狀缺陷，但不引人注目，經過歲月的觸摸以後，有所擦損，也不引人注目。 一般性相對的狀態﹕極善。Treasury 6 圖中的珍珠破壞了，以弧面形珍珠母代替
  
  來源﹕
  未記錄香港董商 (1975年前)
  B. T. Lyons
  倫敦蘇富比, 1982年4月20日, 拍賣品號 64
  Mei Ling 珍藏
  紐約蘇富比，1984年3月15日, 拍賣品號 73 (封面圖片)
  Ashkenazie, San Francisco, (1987)
  
  文獻﹕
  Arts of Asia, July-August 1982, 頁 133
  《國際中國鼻煙壺協會的學術期刊》, 1984年春期，頁 ii
  Orientations, June 1984, 頁 64
  《國際中國鼻煙壺協會的學術期刊》, 1984年夏期，頁 30
  Christie's Review of the Season, 1983–84, 頁 388
  Arts of Asia, September–October 1990, 頁 90, 圖1c
  Kleiner, Yang, and Shangraw 1994, 編號14
  Kleiner 1994a, plate 3
  Kleiner 1995, 編號23
  《國際中國鼻煙壺協會的學術期刊》, 2000年秋期，頁 15, 圖50
  Treasury 6, 編號1071
  
  展覽﹕
  Creditanstalt, Vienna, May–June 1993
  香港藝術館，1994年3月～6月
  National Museum of Singapore, November 1994–February 1995
  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﹕
  這是已知玻璃胎宮廷畫琺瑯鼻煙壺最大的，其特色包括運用瞞眼畫繪畫技巧的開光框。西洋畫法的影響在各別細節都看得出來，就是一個側面的山水畫，枯木前邊疊加直幹結葉的樹木也流露洋畫的影響。本壺燒製時，在宮廷作坊裏，中國和歐洲來的畫家攜手從事畫琺瑯器的製造與繪飾。

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Category: Asian Art / Chinese Works of Art

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