A WHITE AND RUSSET JADE 'AUBERGINE' SNUFF BOTTLE
Qing dynasty, 18th century
Superbly carved with an elegant fecund body with areas of the brown skin of the original pebble used to highlight parts of the body and the naturalistic dimpled leaves that decorate the neck and form a collar; stopper.
2 1/8in (5.3cm) high
Footnotes:
清 十八世紀 白玉帶皮茄形鼻煙壺

For a discussion on the variety of nephrite aubergine-shaped (egg-plant) snuff bottles, some with separately cut calyx, and others, like ours, carved from a single stone, see Michael C. Hughes, The Chester Beatty Library, Dublin, Chinese Snuff Bottles, Baltimore, 2009, pp. 60-61, nos. 43-44. See also another from the Imperial Collection illustrated in Snuff Bottles in the Collection of the National Palace Museum, Taipei, 1991, pp. 159, no. 146.

For another white jade example, see Bonhams, New York, 9 September 2019, lot 101.