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A cloisonne bottle that puzzles me

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rosegl
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« on: December 15, 2013, 06:37:32 am »

Hello colleagues,

happy to be back on this Forum after a period with health problems.

In 1975, I bought a 'double fish' cloisonne bottle from Sotheby's (said to be of the collection of a Mrs. Robertson) that was not dated and I couldn't date. Does somebody has a proposal? The foot is flat, no mark.

Thanks

Georges


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Joey Silver / Si Zhouyi 義周司
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« Reply #1 on: December 15, 2013, 10:34:32 am »

Dear Georges,
   WELCOME BACK! I hope the health issues are behind you.
   We are having Swiss-type weather in Jerusalem currently, but hope it will end soon, and let us get back to the much more balmy Mediterranean type weather.
   I would reckon that the bottle was not more than 20-25 years old when you purchased it; and possibly only a few years old. The colours and style are all wrong for even 19th C. work, much less earlier.
Best,
 Joey
   
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Joey Silver (Si Zhouyi 義周司), collecting snuff bottles since Feb.1970

rosegl
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« Reply #2 on: December 15, 2013, 03:33:19 pm »

Dear Joey,

thank you for your wishes and for your dating proposal.
You might of course be right. I never thought it was a really old bottle. What puzzles me is that it is quite different in shape and colours from other cloisonne bottles I bought around the same period and were said to have been produced between 1850 and 1950, for example the attached example ex. coll. Victor Weinberg. Also that Sotheby's illustrated it in the catalogue (what they didn't do, as far as I know, for "modern" bottles). The only parallel example I've found until know in a catalogue from 1994 (Galerie Zacke, Vienna) was dated 1861-1880.

Georges


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Joey Silver / Si Zhouyi 義周司
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« Reply #3 on: December 15, 2013, 05:22:14 pm »

Georges,
   I have owned 4 genuine cloissonne bottles that were ca. 1770-1850, and have seen a lot that were as late as 1900. They are all relatively simple in design and in dark colours. The first is because of limitations in the technology of the time in doing very small art objects in this technique which is so 'fiddly'. The second I assume is because of taste of the time, though it may be because those colours were more easily used for whatever reasons.
  The second bottle you posted, I would date to ca. 1950-1990. If you'd not bought the first one in 1975, I would have dated it the same, but we know it can't be after 1975.  Cheesy
Re.Sotheby's: They will illustrate anything that will sell. And with both Gallerie Zacke and  Sotheby's,  it is definitely Caveat Emptor.  Wink
Best,
  Joey
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Joey Silver (Si Zhouyi 義周司), collecting snuff bottles since Feb.1970

Wattana
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« Reply #4 on: December 15, 2013, 09:33:28 pm »

Hi Georges,

I agree with Joey's comments. I have never seen an older cloisonne bottle of this shape, or using this kind of decorative detail and palette of colours. I would date both to second half of 20th century.

Tom
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rosegl
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« Reply #5 on: December 16, 2013, 02:52:26 am »

Thanks for your comments, Tom and Joey. As I bought the second bottle in 1973, the correct dating would be 1950 - 1970, probably nearer to 1950 because it was part of a collection assembled in the decades before 1970.

Regards

Georges
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Joey Silver / Si Zhouyi 義周司
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« Reply #6 on: December 16, 2013, 04:46:09 am »

Dear Georges,
    I bought one in 1975 with similar colours and similar complicated design, sold to me in Toronto as late 18th C. (and so catalogued by me for a few years till a very good friend, visiting in 1980 in Jerusalem, disabused me of that belief! And let me know that two bottles with very simple designs, and dark colours, in my collection, bought earlier, were actually ca. 1770-1850.  I had almost jettisoned them, after I bought my 'better' example! Wink ).
    Subsequently, I assumed that it was made barely a year before I bought it. It is interesting to know that it is possibly the earlier part of that time range, though one can't know. One can only know it must have been made before one got possession of it.
Best,
   Joey
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Joey Silver (Si Zhouyi 義周司), collecting snuff bottles since Feb.1970

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