Nine Fu dogs bottle

[Fiveroosters aka clayandbrush]

Dear all,
I premise that the motif of this bottle, the iron red Fu dogs, is not one of my favorite. It is very common on vases and bowls of the early 20th century. But I must say that on this bottle the motif is quite pretty, nine dogs very finely drawn to my eyes. This too is part of the last purchased lot of bottles. It is 78 mm high. I believe that it must be of the period, I mean beginning of 20th century, regardless the mark.
Kind regards
Giovanni

[George]

Beautiful... !

[Joey Silver / Si Zhouyi 義周司]

Dear Giovanni,
    I love 'Pho' too, but with beef, never dog! Do you mean 'Fu' Dogs?
('Pho' is a Vietnamese soup; sorry, Giovanni, I couldn't help it!  )
Joey

[Fiveroosters aka clayandbrush]

Dear Joey,
absolutely funning, you won't believe why that. Yesterday I saw in the catalogue of a local aution a Fu dog, called by them as "Pho dog" and this made me laugh. I was joking within myself about that, wondering "why not phoo dog then?" and so on. Well it seems that it has been impressed in my mind, I did the same, and repeated it in the title and the text! I am laughing and ashamed at the same time, haha. I will correct it, thank you for pointing that out.
Giovanni

[Pat - 查尚杰]

Giovanni

I think it is a nice bottle...  but I am also not that fond of the Fu dog motif.

[Joey Silver / Si Zhouyi 義周司]

Dear Giovanni,
    No need to be ashamed!
    I have a friend who told me about how she had a used tissue in one hand and a fifty Euro note in the other. She accidentally threw the note into the fire ( in Ireland we all have open fires still, as well as central heating), instead of the tissue. And her family can NOT afford that! Luckily, her husband was there and is very quick thinking and moving, and he saved the 50 Euros. She told me when I was over for a cup of tea, and I asked how she could do such a thing.
    She said, take a tissue in one hand and a Euro note in the other. Try and throw the tissue instead of the money, and see what happens. I, like an idiot, took a 50 Euro note as well. Would you believe I did THE SAME THING?!
    She was waiting, and saved my note, but did I feel stupid!
   The bottle is very sweet, and I was so busy with the Vietnamese Beef soup, I never noticed.
Erick Schiess, a dealer in snuff bottles and other Asian Arts in Portland, Oregon, is representing me with the
Braga collection. I'm bidding on 11 lots, but am not sure I'll get anything. G-D Willing, I will get the bottles I want.
Be well,
And always laugh - never be ashamed,
Joey

[Steven]

Dear Giovanni,

A very nice bottle, I love the Fu dogs motif, one of my favorite subject besides the dragons. I actually will date this bottle a little bit early than you did, I would say it could be a later 19th bottle, since the Mark is a mark seal, which is very popular during the later 19th.

I just bought a blue and white Fu dogs bottle, will share it with all when it arrives.

Steven

[Joey Silver / Si Zhouyi 義周司]

Congratulations, Steven! Wonderful.
Shabbat Shalom,
Joey

[Steven]

Thanks Joey,

But don't expect too much, I can't afford any good blue&white bottle, mine would be a middle to low class bottle.or possible a modern fake ,I am not so confident about my porcelain knowledge.


Shabbat Shalom,

Steven

[rpfstoneman]

Giovanni,

Very nice looking bottle.  I too like this motif as shown by this previous post;

http://snuffbottle.smfforfree.com/index.php/topic,988.0.html

Charll

[Fiveroosters aka clayandbrush]

Dear Joey, you made me laugh, very funny.
Dear all, thank you. Of course I like the earlier dating made by Steven.
I too like the bottle as said, I find the motif quite fine in execution.
Giovanni

[Wattana]

Dear Giovanni,
    That is a fine looking bottle. I happen to like fu dogs.........and iron-red porcelains.
Tom

[richy88]

Hi Giovanni

Nice bottle there.

I also have a porcelain bottle of the same theme but carved in relief. The glaze of light creamy colour, probably to imitate ivory.

Enjoy!


Richard

[Fiveroosters aka clayandbrush]

Dear all,
I consulted the Gerald Davison's book on Chinese Marks but I have not found the one that is on this bottle.
It is barely readable and I did try to enhance its contrast to make it more readable.
Is it possible to read it?
Thank you in advance.
Kind regards
Giovanni

[Joey Silver / Si Zhouyi 義周司]

Dear Giovanni,

    The inscription is read from top right down to bottom right and then from top left to bottom left.
[ x ] - meaning of character / { x } number of strokes in character [how you find a character in the dictionary]
First character - jiu  [nine] {2 stroke character}
Second character - ?
Third character - tong [same] {6 stroke character}
Fourth character - ju [residence] {8 stroke character}

But this is possibly not the Classical Chinese meaning.
I hope this is helpful.

Best,
Happy Hanuka,
Joey

[Fiveroosters aka clayandbrush]

Dear Joey,
thank you! I did try with Google translate and I see that you are correct with the first and third character, but the fourth character is indeed different, being Ju written this way: 据 while actually the character on the bottle is missing the vertical line on the left.
But it is good that you have found the character nine, which may indicate that the inscription is related to the subject of the bottle.
Let see if we will find more.
Kind regards
Giovanni

[Joey Silver / Si Zhouyi 義周司]

Dear Giovanni,

    Your 'ju' is not my 'ju'. I wrote out the character on your bottle, counting the strokes, then looked under 8 stroke characters.
It is DEFINITELY 'ju' with 8 strokes. But you must remember - there are 5 tones [actually 4 and a half-tone] of 'ju' in Mandarin, and each one is written differently.
Best,
joey

[Fiveroosters aka clayandbrush]

OK, thank you dear Joey. Chinese language is not my field, "it looks like Chinese to me ". Note: here, when someone is facing something that he can't understand, he says that "it looks like Chinese to me".
Giovanni

[Joey Silver / Si Zhouyi 義周司]

Dear Giovanni,

     In Canada we used to say, "It's Greek to me". 
In Israel we also say, "It's Chinese to me". Some people say, "It's Japanese to me."
I'm surprised that Richard Baey, YT, or Samson Lee,  have not helped.
Best,
Joey

[Wattana]

     In Canada we used to say, "It's Greek to me". 

Dear Joey,

They say the same thing in the UK. My reply was always: "That's no problem at all!"
Or, to put it another way: Δεν είναι πρόβλημα !    

Best,
Tom