Porcelain Snuff Bottle with Figures, Horse, and Landscape

Object/Artifact

-

The Curio Cabinet Collection

Name/Title

Porcelain Snuff Bottle with Figures, Horse, and Landscape

Entry/Object ID

SB3617

Description

Chinese porcelain snuff bottle of slender ovoid form, finely painted in polychrome enamels with a continuous narrative landscape incorporating several figures, a saddled horse, pine trees, rocks, flowering vegetation, and architectural elements. Particularly fine dark-line drawing defines the figures, horse, foliage, rockwork, and landscape details, while a restrained palette of green, rose, aubergine, yellow, and brown provides color against the white porcelain ground. The recessed glazed base bears a small iron-red cursive mark or signature that remains unidentified and warrants further research. Probably late Qing to Republic period, provisionally c. 1880–1930. The original stopper is absent, with apparent remnants of its cork/fiber fitting surviving within the mouth.

Category

Chinese snuff bottle

Made/Created

Artist

Maker presently unidentified

Time Period

20th Century

Ethnography

Cultural Region

Continent

Asia

Culture/Tribe

Chinese

Inscription/Signature/Marks

Base bears an intentionally applied iron-red calligraphic mark, presently unresolved. The inscription appears to comprise a principal dense calligraphic component and at least one additional probable character; a small isolated red element may be either an intentional adjunct or stray enamel. The mark has not yet been securely transcribed and should not presently be identified as a maker's, workshop, auspicious, or reign mark.

Dimensions

Height

2-5/8 in

Diameter

1-3/8 in

Weight

48 g

Materials

Material

Porcelain

Material Notes

With polychrome overglaze enamels and iron-red base mark/signature

Condition

Overall Condition

Good

Acquisition

Acquisition Method

Purchase