A very fine and rare hardstone-mounted gilt-bronze 'auspicious peaches and bats' oval snuff box and cover, Qianlong, circa 1740-1770. Photo: Courtesy of Bonhams.
HONG KONG.- Elaborate snuff boxes will be offered at The Speelman Collection of Chinese ‘Imperial Tribute’ Snuff Boxes sale to be held at 1pm on 24 November at the Island Ballroom of the Island Shangri-La Hotel.
In 18th century Europe, every socially prominent gentleman (and many ladies) enjoyed the occasional pinch of snuff, the ground tobacco providing an exotic stimulus during a dinner or a long conversation. This imported luxury was stored in a 'snuff box', a small hinged box and cover often created in expensive materials like gold and silver, and sometimes enriched with precious stones.
When aristocratic Chinese discovered 'snuff', they also stored it in small containers. However, China's damp climate meant that airtight snuff bottles were more suitable than boxes which could be sealed tightly to stop the tobacco powder getting damp.
Nevertheless, since court officials were fascinated by many Western accessories, a few snuff boxes were created in China during the 18th century to amuse the top-level court officials. Guangzhou (Canton) was probably the main manufacturing centre, copying European boxes carried by Western visitors to make elaborate and beautiful 'Imperial Tribute' snuff boxes as gifts to senior Beijing court members. These boxes are extremely rare and often equal in fine quality with their European original models.
The Speelman Collection is a unique group of 19 of these elaborate 'Chinese Imperial Tribute' snuff boxes. Commenting on the sale, Colin Sheaf, Chairman of Bonhams Asia said: "Assembled during a lifetime of collecting, these boxes illuminate the colourful cross-cultural social and creative exchanges that the China Trade made possible in the 18th century. They form a fascinating study group, and I am thrilled that we are to offer them in this unique sale".
Highlights of the sale include:
Lot 18 A very fine and rare hardstone-mounted gilt-bronze 'auspicious peaches and bats' oval snuff box and cover, Qianlong, circa 1740-1770. Photo courtesy Bonhams
The oval container lavishly gilt, the cover set with five bats in flight amidst cloudy skies ready to feed on a pair of succulent peaches issuing from leafy stems, the finely-worked inlaid subjects created from lapis lazuli, jadeite, rock crystal and other materials, all within cloud wisps in relief, the sides decorated with dense vine scrolls issuing from flower sprays dividing four barbed cartouches, the cover interior set with a mirror. 8.5cm wide; 6.5cm deep; 4.3cm high. Estimate HK$ 600,000 - 800,000 (€57,000 - 77,000)
Tribute objects from Canton still in the Imperial collection have been widely published. Another exceptional and very similar 'five bat' box and cover catalogued as being gold is in the Palace Museum, Beijing, Treasures of Imperial Court: The Complete Collection of Treasures of the Palace Museum, 1995, col.pl.194 (two views)(fig.1). The materials used in this Imperial box appear to include rose quartz, jadeite, agate and rock crystal. These elaborate and auspicious boxes were obviously popular gifts at the Beijing Court: see another hardstone-mounted example with elaborately pierced sides in the Palace Museum, ibid., no.193 (two views); and a third related example mainly embellished with hardstones on a pierced ground, forms the hinges and hollow head of a ruyi, presumably intended to contain a perfume sponge, ibid., no.50 (two views). Another expensive box of similar craftsmanship, elaborately inlaid with hardstones but designed to hold Buddhist scriptures, is illustrated, ibid., no.188 (two views).
Lot 15 A very fine and rare embellished gilt-bronze oblong octagonal 'European landscape' snuff box and covern Qianlong, circa 1740-1760. Photo: Courtesy of Bonhams
Formed in three tiers and thickly gilt, the cover with a cartouche depicting two sheep grazing on a terrace with distant huts and towers, framed within alternating seed pearl and red paste embellishments, the interior tier displaying a scene of two lovers seated above rockworks in courtship beneath a willow tree and beside a pavilion in various-coloured enamels, the side with an ornate decorative latch with floral patterns intricately inset with seed pearls, ruby-like and emerald-coloured embellishments, above elaborate European-style landscape repoussé panels within billowing textile and geometric borders, decorated with animals amongst European structures at the axis, the base engraved with floral scrolls and sprays. 7.3cm wide; 6.3cm deep; 3.6cm high. (2). Estimate HK$ 600,000 - 800,000 (€57,000 - 77,000)
It is very rare to find Canton snuff boxes with an internal painted textile panel. The Western tradition is to add an enamel painting to the outside (or, less often, the inside) of the box frame; see for example lot 1 in this sale, for a conventional Western-style design interpreted by a Canton enameller. An unprotected painted textile panel is infinitely more fragile, and also suggests that the box may have been used to contain an ingredient which would not stain the painting. For another example of a Chinese painting on silk incorporated into a small Canton box, in this case made of painted ivory, see the gilt-bronze and ivory triple-circle box sold at Paris at Piasa, 14 June 2012, lot 297 (sold for EUR1,351,070). This present lot relates to other fine-quality Canton boxes with repoussé and chased landscape decoration, such as the hardstone oval silver box illustrated by John Devereux Kernan, The Chait Collection of Chinese Export Silver, New York, 1985, no.284, though the silver one is less impressive quality since it was intended for the foreign market.
During the first quarter of the 18th century, snuff boxes produced in England were usually rectangular, oval or bow-fronted in form, and the decoration if any was generally confined to an emblazoned coat-of-arms or an elegantly-engraved monogram; see A.Kenneth Snowman, Eighteenth Century Gold Boxes of Europe,p.93. This suggests that an elaborate Canton box such as the present lot is very unlikely to predate about 1730-40. In fact, the author also records that shaped boxes elaborately embossed with groups in relief, enacting classical or mythological scenes became fashionable about the middle of the 18th century:op.cit., p.93. See a comparable tribute snuff box attributed to the Swiss master craftsmen with similar designs of relief at the cover, currently preserved in the National Palace Museum, Taipei, illustrated by Hou, Yi-Li, Lifting the Spirit and Body: The Art and Culture of Snuff Bottles, Taipei, 2012, pp.58-59, no.I-002.
For an octagonal silver box decorated in enamelled and repoussé work, attributed to the Yongzheng period, see Tributes from Guangdong to the Qing Court, op.cit., p.81, col.pl.40.
Lot 9 A very rare lac burgaute 'crouching boy' snuff box and cover. Inlaid Qianlong four-character mark and of the period. Photo: Courtesy of Bonhams
Exquisitely worked in the form of a recumbent boy, his feet tucked in and head resting on his right hand, his joyful face surmounted by a tiny tuft of hair, the details highlighted in gilt lacquer, wearing a lavish brown lacquer garment decorated with dense leafy scrolls, quatrefoil and chrysanthemum patterns finely inlaid with shell, the inside with a butterfly and a persimmon fruit, the base with the inlaid four-character zhuanshuseal mark. 6.5cm wide; 4.2cm deep; 4.2cm high. Estimate HK$ 600,000 - 800,000 (€57,000 - 77,000)
This is the only 'Tribute box' in the Speelman Collection which does not owe a great deal to traditions of Western manufacture. It is by definition made in Chinese taste for the domestic market, using techniques in which Canton craftsmen excelled. It follows a Yuan and Ming tradition of carefully choosing finely-coloured pieces of shell to lay into a wet lacquer base, as a brilliant shining contrast with the brown lacquer ground. The 'kneeling boy' is a well-known Chinese subject for the decorative arts artisans in Canton and Jingdezhen: 'crouching boys' can be found in porcelain and jade, but are much rarer in lacquer.
Two other examples of these shell-inlaid lacquer 'boy' boxes and covers have been exhibited and published. See the Exhibition, Mother of Pearl Inlay in Chinese Lacquer Art, Tokyo National Museum, 1981,Catalogue, no.104 (two illustrations)(fig,1), where a late Ming date suggested for this unmarked box, unlike the Qianlong reign mark on the Speelman example; and the similar but less attractive example exhibited in Berlin, Anstelling Chinesescher Kunst, Wurfel Varlag Berlin, 1929, no.1070, from the collection of A.Breuer, Berlin (fig.2).