Dear Joey,
To be clear, you said:
“Do you mean the one with the flaming pearl in his claw?
But Christie's 'South Ken' is STILL Christie's....”
If you were referring to the bottle sold by Christie’s, then it is not the bottle with the dragon emerging from water and holding the pearl. We both said that that bottle is modern.
The one sold by Christie’s is the first, left one in the group of three bottles shown by Cathy, and it can be seen in the following link provided by Cathy; you may have missed it:
http://www.christies.com/lotfinder/lot/a-chinese-iron-red-dragon-snuff-bottle-19th-5677481-details.aspxNow, coming back to what you said, it is true that South Kensington is still Christie’s, but it is their secondary place, where they auction what is worth less than a certain starting price, in theory. I say in theory because it is not true at all. They can refuse to sell something of good level alleging that it is not of adequate quality, and at the same time auctioning much lower grade things, and an excellent example is just this bottle. I believe that you agree that the bottle in question is really an average one, nothing special. And it is a real scandal the price it fetched. My feeling is that sometimes they accept to sell also not so good things to accomplish an important seller. Who, in this case, has been very lucky.
Kind regards
Giovanni