Footnotes

• Treasury 7, no. 1636
  
  青銅懷錶鼻煙壺
  宮廷作坊，鑲嵌「乾隆年製」楷書款，1750～1799
  
  A bronze 'pocketwatch' snuff bottle
  
  Bronze, silver, and gold; with a flat lip and recessed flat foot surrounded by a protruding convex footrim; the bronze body inlaid with silver and gold, on one main side with a copy of a European watch face with Roman numerals, the hands set at twelve, with a second hand at forty-eight seconds, the inlay predominantly silver but with a single gold ring around the silver arbor, and on the other with a framed, circular panel with one of the Eight Daoist Immortals, Lü Dongbin, his sword strapped to his back, holding a fly whisk and standing in a rocky landscape with lingzhi and formalized clouds, the sword-hilt, belt, eyes, and the ferrule of the fly-whisk in gold, the rest in silver, with a band of pendant, formalized leaf lappets around the neck, the narrow sides with mask handles, the rings inlaid in silver; the foot inscribed in inlaid silver regular script, Qianlong nian zhi (Made during the Qianlong era)
  Palace workshops, 1750–1799
  Height: 5.06 cm
  Mouth/lip: 0.47/1.15 cm
  Stopper: bronze; inlaid with a formalized flower head in silver, with a line of silver to define the collar, with integral silver spoon; original
  
  Condition:
  Surface patinated and some slight wear to the gold and silver inlay; otherwise, workshop condition
  
  Provenance:
  Sotheby's, New York, 25 June 1981, lot 545
  Hugh M. Moss Ltd (1981)
  J & J Collection
  Christie's, New York, 30 March 2005, lot 45
  
  Published:
  Arts of Asia, July–August 1986, p. 55
  JICSBS, Winter 1989, p. 12, fig 20
  Moss, Graham, and Tsang 1993, no. 262
  Becker 1996, J & J, p. 20
  Scott 1997, p. 20
  National Museum of History 2002, p. 56
  Poly Art Museum 2003, p. 128
  JICSBS, Winter 2003, p. 17, fig. 13
  JICSBS, Autumn 2005, p. 9, fig. 22
  Scitech Trends, November–December 2006, Beijing, p. 141
  Treasury 7, no. 1636
  
  Exhibited:
  Christie's, New York, 1993
  Empress Place Museum, Singapore, 1994
  Museum für Kunsthandwerk, Frankfurt, 1996–1997
  Percival David Foundation of Chinese Art, London, 1997
  Naples Museum of Art, Naples, FL, 2002
  Portland Art Museum, Portland, OR, 2002
  National Museum of History, Taipei, 2002
  International Asian Art Fair, Seventh Regiment Armory, New York, 2003
  Poly Art Museum, Beijing, 2003
  
  This bottle has been subjected to damp conditions at some stage. This is obvious from the interior, which is coated with turquoise-blue verdigris sufficiently thick that it resembles the deliberate turquoise-blue interiors of painted enamel on metal snuff bottles from the palace workshops. It results, of course, from the effects of damp on the copper content in the bronze and is no different from the usually heavier build-up of blue, green, or reddish encrusted patina found on ancient bronzes buried in damp conditions. At some stage, long ago, the bottle ceased to be used. Snuff would have dried out the interior in any case, but had it been used for snuff, the owner would have had to keep the interior dry. Standing for a long period of time with a damp interior sealed in by the original stopper, the bottle had conditions that were ideal to transform the surface of the bronze into a brilliant turquoise-blue colour.
  
  The presence of the sweep second hand allows us to tentatively date this bottle to the second half of the eighteenth century. This innovation in watchmaking would not have become known in China until the second half of the century.
  
  Inlay work with gold and silver wire was done at a special workshop at the palace, and a great deal of it survives, often in the form of fancy inlaid wood stands for works of art. Bronze casting was also done at the palace workshops. Watches were a well-known Chinese courtly obsession throughout the Qing dynasty, but particularly in the eighteenth century. The style of the mask handles is typical of the palace workshops, with the lifelike, rather canine faces, and the four-character reign mark in regular script was a palace standard.
  
  A valuable lesson in judging bronze bottles by their patina on an individual basis, which we have warned against elsewhere, is confirmed yet again by the state of this bottle. When published in 1993, it was of an even, coppery colour. In little more than a dozen years it has already become much darker, with a film of brown all over the exterior. This could be easily cleaned, of course, but it is an indication of how quickly the colour of bronze can change.
  
  Whatever its colour, this remains one of the rarest of palace snuff bottles, combining a lovely shape with intriguing decoration and exemplary workmanship. (See also Sale 1, lot 137.) It also retains its original stopper and spoon, again confirming the palace standard for a long shaft, small oval bowl, and overall length reaching within a millimetre or two of the bottom of the inside of bottle. The great advantage of this watch over the real thing, of course, is that after we have written all this, prostrated ourselves on the chapel floor for past errors, done a little research, and narrowed down the dating of the bottle to the second half of the Qianlong reign, it is still twelve seconds to twelve.
  
  
  青銅懷錶鼻煙壺
  
  青銅、銀、金；平唇、平斂底，突出凸圈足；青銅身以金、銀鑲嵌，一正面倣歐式懷錶，一正面有背負著寶劍，左手拿著拂麈的呂洞賓，頸上部有芭蕉葉紋一周，側面鑄飾獸首啣環耳，環耳鑲嵌銀絲，底鑲嵌"乾隆年製"橫向楷款
  宮廷作坊，1750–1799
  高﹕ 5.06 厘米
  口徑/唇徑： 0.47/1.15 厘米
  蓋﹕ 青銅胎，鑲嵌銀絲花朵紋，有銀絲線條一圈確定座的界限，與銀匙為一體；原件
  
  狀態敘述﹕表面色澤古雅，鑲銀、鑲金呈微乎其微的磨損；此外，出坊狀態
  
  來源:
  紐約蘇富比，1981年6月21日，拍賣品號 545
  Hugh M. Moss Ltd (1981)
  J & J Collection
  紐約佳士得，2005年3月30日，拍賣品號 45
  
  文獻﹕
  Arts of Asia, July–August 1986, p. 55
  《國際中國鼻煙壺協會的學術期刊》，1989年冬期，頁 12, 圖20
  Moss, Graham, and Tsang 1993, 編號 262
  Becker 1996, J & J, p. 20
  Scott 1997, p. 20
  National Museum of History 2002, p. 56
  Poly Art Museum 2003, p. 128
  《國際中國鼻煙壺協會的學術期刊》，2003年冬期，頁 17, 圖 13
  《國際中國鼻煙壺協會的學術期刊》，2005年秋期，頁 9, 圖 22
  Scitech Trends, 2006年11月至12月, 北京, 頁141
  Treasury 7, 編號 1636
  
  展覽﹕
  紐約佳士得，1993
  Empress Place Museum, 新加坡, 1994
  Museum für Kunsthandwerk, Frankfurt, 1996–1997
  Percival David Foundation of Chinese Art, 倫敦, 1997
  Naples Museum of Art, Naples, FL, 2002
  Portland Art Museum, 波蘭, OR, 2002
  National Museum of History, 台北, 2002
  International Asian Art Fair, Seventh Regiment Armory, 紐約, 2003
  Poly Art Museum, 北京, 2003
  
  本壺因為環境的情況內壁結了厚銅綠，顯然是到了一定的時候就不存鼻煙了。
  
  本壺具秒針，秒針是十八世紀後半才發明的。懷錶也是十八世紀清宮特別喜愛的。
  
  另外可參見 第一場拍賣會， 拍賣品號 137。

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Category: Asian Art / Chinese Works of Art

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