Footnotes

Treasury 6, no. 1290


瓷胎青花蟠龍鼻煙壺
景德鎮，青花道光年款，1821～1850


Evolved Dragon Pillar

Colourless glaze on cobalt on porcelain; with a convex lip and a recessed flat foot surrounded by a convex footrim; painted under the glaze with a continuous design of an imperial five-clawed dragon chasing a flaming pearl, the neck decorated with a band of formalized lingzhi; the foot inscribed in underglaze-blue seal script, Da Qing Daoguang nian zhi (Made during the Daoguang period of the Qing dynasty); the lip, inner neck, and interior glazed
Imperial kilns, Jingdezhen, 1821–1850
Height: 6.41 cm
Mouth/lip: 0.80/1.16 cm
Stopper: tourmaline; gilt-silver collar
Condition: tiny, insignificant chip in the biscuit of the footrim; some scratches and abrasions from use. General overall condition: extremely good


Provenance:
Hugh Moss (HK) Ltd (1985)

Published:
Kleiner 1995, no. 224
Treasury 6, no. 1290
Exhibited:
British Museum, London, June–October 1995
Israel Museum, Jerusalem, July–November 1997

Commentary:
Another similar bottle is in the Ault Collection (Kleiner 1990, no. 162), and a third in the Quentin Loh Collection (Vanessa F. Holden 2002, no. 249). Uncompressed forms were a staple of ceramic snuff bottle production from the nineteenth century. One might refer to this as 'cylindrical' although it quite obviously tapers in at the shoulders, but it is also a millimetre narrower around the lower part of the body than around the upper part, and many others are similarly varied. In fact, they blend indistinguishably into exaggeratedly elongate ovoid forms. What characterises them as a distinct formal group is less their 'cylindrical' form than their lack of compression: any cross section would provide a perfect circle, whether they are elongated ovoid forms, cylinders, or tapering cylinders. The purely cylindrical form first appears on imperial bottles in the second half of the Qianlong period. Once the idea of a cylindrical form was developed, however, variations would automatically evolve, particularly once the form was transferred to Jingdezhen and its potential for the ceramic arts explored.

The design of the dragon is probably derived from the popular, early-nineteenth century series of imperial dragon cylinders resembling columns wrapped with pillar carpets (see lot 134). It is exactly like one of the standard designs that fills all the space around a tall cylinder, with the beast in exactly the same position in the air as it chases the flaming pearl, also similarly placed. Here, however, the strictly cylindrical pillar has been dispensed with; the bottle is given gentler lines, slightly tapering towards the foot and curving generously into the narrow neck, which has also assumed the more normal shape for a snuff-bottle neck.

This is one of the rarer examples with the six-character, seal-script reign mark, as opposed to the more standard four-character mark.


進化的蟠龍柱

瓷胎，無色釉裏青花紋飾；凸唇、平斂底、凸形圈足；釉裏畫通體戲火珠五爪蟠龍，頸飾如意雲紋，底有釉裏青花書"大清道光年製"六字篆款；唇、頸內、腹內皆施釉

景德鎮官窯，1821～1850
內畫：周樂元，藕香書軒，宣南房舍，北京，約1892年
高：6.41 厘米
口經/唇經：0.80/1.16 厘米
蓋：碧璽，描金銀座
狀態敘述：圈足露胎處有微不足道的缺口，因累年觸摸，外壁呈現些細小擦痕與磨損；一般相對的狀態：極善

來源：
Hugh Moss (HK), Ltd (1985)
文獻﹕
Kleiner 1995, 編號224
Treasury 6， 編號1290
展覽﹕
大英博物館, 倫敦, 1995年6月～10 月
Israel Museum, 耶路撒冷, 1997年7月～11月

說明：
Ault珍藏收藏類似的中件煙壺（Kleiner 1990, 編號162）; Quentin Loh珍藏也收藏一件（Vanessa F. Holden 2002, 編號249）。非扁形的鼻煙壺是十九世紀煙壺出產的重要成分。圓筒形的御製品從乾隆後半期就有，然後它就進化了，特別是非扁形御製品的製造被轉移到景德鎮之後，陶瓷藝術方面的可能性就得以發揮了。

本壺一定是十九世紀流行的龍抱柱毯型演變出來的，盤龍的姿勢、火珠的配置，都跟"柱壺"上的圖案是一致的，只是壺形柔和一點。六字的道光年款比四字的比較少見。