AN AGATE 'PEANUT AND JUJUBE' SNUFF BOTTLE, OFFICIAL SCHOOL, QING DYNASTY

Agate, the body with multiple bands varying from light grey to deep honey-brown, with an ochre layer on top, smooth surface polish. China, 18th- 19th century

Naturalistically carved in the form of a Jujube fruit with neatly incised veins, the opaque skin skillfully worked to form two sculptural peanuts in high relief.

The artist has ingeniously accommodated the material by using the slightly translucent, darker section of the agate to form the body of the bottle as a single large Jujube and the fully opaque, brighter section to carve the two peanuts, shown still inside their shells. One side is sculpturally more dynamic than the other and appears to have been conceived as the main side. This is confirmed by the placing of the peanuts, both of which can be seen only from one side.

This is one of the more realistic and simpler carvings of the group, with full focus being on detailed and expressive depiction of fruit and nuts. The three basic colors of the material, the lines of the jujube and the three-dimensional relief combine to make a minimalist statement, to some extent independent of its purely representational content. The successful combination of material and subject matter demonstrates why this type of agate was used extensively for such Peanut bottles as well as for a series of quite popular small pendants with the almost identical decoration that appear to come from the same workshop.

There is a unique nephrite bottle from the Edward Chow Collection (Robert Hall 1995, no. 8, pp. 56-63) that is also decorated in relief with Jujubes and peanuts. The bottle itself is left plain and follows the pebble shape of the material rather than being grooved to represent a Jujube, and the style of carving the peanuts is different, but the bottle clearly demonstrates that this was at some point also a courtly subject.

Shape: Sculptural
Hollowing: Excellent
Mouth, neck and lip: Mouth succinct to depiction
Base: Flattened oval, with a convex circle in the center, bottle does stand
Design, marks, school: Official school
Stopper: Jadeite with metal mounting, carved in the shape of peaches and tendrils, good old carved spoon, double-sided
Height of the bottle with stopper: 7.5 cm.
Width of the mouth: 6 mm.
Condition: Excellent, minor nibbling to mouth, one chip to stopper
Provenance: American private collection

Literature comparison: Snuff Bottles from the Mary & George Bloch Collection: Part IX. Sotheby's, Hong Kong, November 24th, 2014, lot 28. Asian Art. Sotheby's, New York, September 19th, 2015, lot 909. Important Chinese Snuff Bottles from The J&J Collection, Part IV. Christies, New York, March 22nd, 2007, lot 85. (all for similar peanut agate bottles)

清代瑪瑙"花生蜜棗"鼻烟壺
品相極好, 唇部有些微磕碰，瓶蓋有一道小開口
美國私人收藏