Dear Marcos,
My late mother of blessed memory was a collector of ancient glass from Israel and environs. She started in 1952, on her first visit to Israel with my late father of blessed memory.
A nice antiquities dealer they met gave my mom a few cheap little 'tear bottles', used for collecting tears at a funeral 2000 years ago, or so the story goes. She bought a few more serious examples, and started to collect. On her death, 52 years later, she left a collection of close to 700 vessels, and 600 or so shards. The shards were special examples (one with part of an inscription by Ennion, the great Judean glassblower/maker of 2000 years ago; another with an Egyptian 'god's' visage; etc.), and some were worth more than 10 or more of the vessels.
When I started collecting Chinese snuff bottles 18 years after my mom had started collecting the glass, she advised me to go slow at first, learning as much as I could by reading, visiting museum and private collections wherever possible, and visiting dealers. And when I was at a dealer's, not to be a nuisance, but to learn as much as possible.
And her final bit of advice was to buy the best I could afford, and 1 better example rather than 3 which were cheaper.
Marcos, FOCUS ON QUALITY.
And you need to trust yourself - you immediately saw (and acknowledged in your first post) that the two were NOT well painted.
We've all been there, where we feel something is NOT good, but are swayed by our lack of self-confidence, or by someone who claims they know more than we do.
There are always people who know more. On this Forum I almost invariably accept Giovanni's opinion on Chinese porcelain and ceramics, and Steven's eye for IPSBs, to give just two here on the Forum.
But there are those who know a lot less, but act as if they do know. And can influence others.
Thanks to such a shmuck, in 1993, I was blessed to acquire a superb possibly Imperial Porcelain works 'Anhua' decorated dragon bottle, ca.1760-1820. 'Anhua' (literally, 'secret language') is where a clay vessel body surface is incised with a design before the vessel is glazed and fired. After, one can see the design if one looks carefully. It is #13 in my B & W catalogue, "In Search of a Dragon".
One day in 1993, I was in SF, and went with a dear friend to a Butterfields Asian Arts auction preview. I found this treasure among the 30 or so snuff bottles being auctioned. I knew right away what it was, and put a US$1,500 bid on it (we were meeting yet another friend, the late Margaret Polak, and going out for Chinese food together, so I had to miss the bidding). I figured it should fetch between US$500 and US$800 hammer price at the time, but did not want to lose it.
I was watching the other viewers, and noticed one shmuck, a fellow MoT (Undzerer), trying to show off to his girlfriend, a nice Filipina girl, how smart he was. He picked up 'my' bottle, and said,"See this? It is NOT a snuff bottle! It is a medicine bottle and the label is glued on the blank area in the middle! It is not worth much!".
The bottom was encircled by crested waves and the shoulders by scrolling clouds and bats, all in underglazed cobalt blue, on the soft paste surface. the middle 40mm of the 68mm high bottle, did indeed look 'blank' if you weren't aware.
I went off to a delicious Chinese lunch at Tommy Toy's Cuisine Chinoise on Montgomery St. (THE place for expensive but opulent and delicious Chinese food and Chinese-French fusion food, from its opening in 1986 to its closing in 2013), and returned to find that the treasure was mine, at US$125 total!!! I was ecstatic, and had just paid and collected my new treasure, when the shmuck saw I'd got the 'cheap medicine bottle'!
He wanted to show off in front of his girlfriend or date, and how better than to push some other guy's face into the mud? So he led her to me, and said, "Oh! I see you bought the cheap medicine bottle! Why'd you waste your money on that cheap crap?!" Out of a cloth carrier bag, I saw a soft cover museum catalogue on snuff bottles sticking out. My catalogue.
I replied, "Oh, I see you have the Silver catalogue from the Israel Museum show in 1987-1988. Was the show any good?"
Now he started to look a little nervous - I'd not cringed when he insulted my buy, and I obviously knew something about snuff bottles, to know about the catalogue and exhibition.
His reply was that he saw the show, and became very friendly with the owner. Which caused my good friend, Wesley K. to laugh and say, "You aren't Joey's type! He goes for guys with a sixpack!" I think Wes reacted like this because earlier, we'd both 'suffered' from his trying to show off for the date, and being quite obnoxious while doing it. Usually, Wes is the height of modest gentlemanly behavior.
We were going to meet Margaret to visit her home and enjoy looking at her collection, so I decided to cut this short.
I said, "Wes is right. I do prefer men with muscles and a sixpack. And this is NOT a medicine bottle - it has Anhua decoration of a 5 clawed Imperial dragon, and is probably mid-Qianlong to end of Jiaqing, and Imperial Porcelain Works in Jingdezhen. And I got it for only US$125 including commission! I had left a US$1,500 bid on it, to be sure I'd get it.
Thank you for convincing all my possible bidding competitors that it had no value!
This treasure AND our delicious Sunday lunch for 3 at Tommy Toy's cost me less than the US$500 I expected to pay for the bottle if I was really, REALLY lucky! Thanks to you I suspect. Want me to autograph your copy of my catalogue?" And for good measure, I held my Israeli passport open, so they could see my full name. Just like on the catalogue.
He obviously didn't want me to sign it, and Wes and I got out of there, laughing. Margaret, waiting semi-patiently in her Mercedes (ie., not patiently!
), asked what had us laughing so uproariously. We told her on the way to her home, where we spent a few hours looking at her superb collection, before going to a wonderful nearby Thai restaurant, where Wes and I were treated to another delicious Asian meal, and much more reasonable than Tommy Toy's (My tip at TT's was probably higher than the total bill! But the food was as good and that is the important thing.)
Best,
Joey