Footnotes

• Treasury 2. no. 296
  
  瑪瑙雕古玩款鼻煙壺
  頒賜類，1730～1850
  
  An inscribed agate snuff bottle
  
  Agate; very well hollowed, with a concave lip and recessed flat foot surrounded by a protruding rounded footrim; the foot inscribed in cameo relief script guwan ('antique curio')
  Official School, 1730–1850
  Height: 5.58 cm
  Mouth/lip: 0.7/2.01 and 1.95 cm (oval)
  Stopper: coral; gold collar; turquoise finial
  
  Condition: two tiny chips to wan character on foot; otherwise, workshop condition
  
  Provenance:
  Viscount Mervyn Powerscourt (London, 1987)
  
  Published:
  Kleiner, Yang, and Shangraw 1994, no. 215
  Treasury 2, no. 296
  
  Exhibited:
  Hong Kong Museum of Art, March–June 1994
  National Museum, Singapore, November 1994–February 1995
  University Museum and Art Gallery, University of Hong Kong, 1999
  
  This snuff bottle lies between the silhouette and cameo groups, demonstrating yet again the need for flexibility in considering our categories. On all the usual surfaces for snuff-bottle decoration it is an entirely plain, beautifully formed, very well hollowed, faintly banded agate, with the technical features that suggest a first-phase product of the Official School. With a rich imagination and a cask of Amontillado one might be able to conjure up a viable landscape image, particularly if one lived in an area of permanent mists, but one would need to try it out on a particularly poetic audience. Turned on end, however, the bottle is unquestionably a cameo design, albeit a cameo consisting of only two characters and the footrim. The artist has chosen to use the different colour in the material, not as the main face of the bottle but as its foot; otherwise, the method used is identical to any subject carved in cameo relief. Restrained, imaginative, and subtle, it is also as well realized as the finest of the more usual range of cameo relief chalcedony bottles.
  
  Guwan means 'ancient curio', a rather odd inscription for the bottom of a snuff bottle. It may well be that these characters are meant to be read left to right, giving the more conventional wan gu, 'amusing oneself with antiquity'. It was an elegant pastime to 'amuse oneself' with old objects, old books, and the lofty values they represented, and the phrase could be used by the rich salt merchant posing as a scholar as well as by the scholar seeking to disguise the earnestness with which he sought to commune with the ancients. Although there is no direct reference to ancient art in this bottle, the implication was that because it was simple and elegant, representing the best of the past, it had archaic resonance. A Qing aesthete might receive this bottle as a gift from someone who knew of his interest in antiquity.
  
  Although unusually placed on the foot here, the use of the cameo technique just for inscriptions is not otherwise unknown. Another example from the Cussons Collection, with a cameo inscription on one main side of the bottle, was offered by Sotheby's, Hong Kong, 3 May 1995, lot 477.
  
  The stopper here is an example of a so-called 'Mongolian stopper', with its exaggeratedly tall piece of coral, of very deep, rich colour, which was the most valued kind. Actually, among such stoppers it still ranks as one of the more restrained versions. A rare feature here is the solid gold collar, as opposed to a gilt bronze one, possibly prompted by the unusually deep colour of the stone it supported and its consequently higher value.
  
  瑪瑙雕古玩款鼻煙壺
  
  瑪瑙； 掏膛徹底 ，凹唇，平斂底，突出圈足，圈足底為一圓棱； 底陽b雕"古玩"二字
  頒賜品, 1730–1850
  高﹕ 5.58 厘米
  口經/唇經： 0.7/2.01 及 1.95 厘米 (橢圓形)
  蓋﹕珊瑚； 黃金座，綠松石頂飾
  
  狀態敘述：玩字上有兩道細小的缺口； 此外，出坊狀態
  
  來源﹕
  Viscount Mervyn Powerscourt (London, 1987)
  
  文獻﹕
  Kleiner, Yang, and Shangraw 1994, 編號215
  Treasury 2, 編號296
  
  展覽﹕
  香港藝術館，1994年3月～6月
  National Museum, Singapore, November 1994–February 1995
  University Museum and Art Gallery, University of 香港， 1999
  
  說明﹕
  本壺在通常修飾圖案的壺面卻是光素的，而在底部則是二色巧雕類。這是不多見的，但類似的有 Cussons 珍藏的一件正面巧雕著題句的鼻煙壺﹕香港蘇富比，1995年5月3日, 拍賣品號 477.。
  
  本壺掏膛徹底，整體上表示早期頒賜品的特色。矜持的、堪潛心玩索，是最精彩的二色巧雕玉髓鼻煙壺之一。
  
  把底上的字讀為"古玩"有點乖，因為一件鼻煙壺明明不可能是古代的器物，也許應該讀為"玩古"。不過，本壺具有古老的蒼勁樸實，聊且當作古玩還是和乎情理的吧。
  
  很高的一塊珊瑚製成的這件蓋很特別，其顏色是最珍視的，也許是只有用罕見的黃金座來稱配才好。

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Category: Asian Art / Chinese Works of Art

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