My first ever snuff bottle.

[forestman]

This is the bottle that started me off on my snuff bottle journey. It can't have been far off 30 years since I bought it. I had little money then and sought out "interesting" bits to go in a cabinet I made myself to save money.

If memory serves me right, and it still does most of the time, it came from what could loosely be termed an antique shop as there was nothing smart about it with shelves full of all sorts, most of which was cheap tat and was a single shop away from any others in a long road of houses in Eastleigh (If you haven't been there you haven't missed anything).

On enquiring I don't think it was referred to as a snuff bottle, simply a Chinese looking bottle with a spoon held in the lid for something, maybe medicine. It costs nothing more than a few pounds and was bought together with some tobacco tins which I also collected at the time.

Strangely, it's only been more recently that I've looked at it with a loupe and appreciated the detail in the painting. There are no marks on the bottom but there is some faint calligraphy in the wall in the picture on the front. I'm sure the standing lady with what look like insect feelers is someone from some old Chinese fable. 

Regards all, Adrian.

[George]

Really beautiful bottle Adrian...

I am on the run this morning, but if you have not had a chance to see other similar bottles, I will share some later ..

What a wonderful first bottle !

[Luke]

Very nice Adrian!

[Joey Silver / Si Zhouyi 義周司]

Adrian,
 
     I wish my first bottle had been as good as that! Well done!
Joey

[Fiveroosters aka clayandbrush]

Wow dear Adrian, a nice one! Not later than Tongzhi in my opinion, Daoguang-Tongzhi.
Kind regards
Giovanni

[forestman]

Thank you all for your comments.

There was no "well done", just luck as I really had no sense of what I was buying, it was just a nice shelf filler at the time that joined a varied selection of cheap items that appealed.

Tom/Wattana answered another post I put up that matched my recollections of buying back then. General dealers who didn't specialise in any area might end up with a bottle or two that they knew nothing about and simply wanted to move on at some profit so you could find good bottles for very little if you were lucky, and all involving a nice day out before the days of the internet.

Regards all, Adrian.

[rpfstoneman]

All, this bottle was among a large collection of oriental porcelains and pottery that my parents purchased in 1979 from a private collector.  It along with six other bottles, or so, came with the collection purchased and was my first encounter of snuff bottles.  It was passed down to me from my parents.  It is more of a memento keepsake in my collection than anything else. 

Porcelain Oatmeal Crackle Glaze Snuff Bottle:
Warm oatmeal crackle glaze snuff bottle of meiping form with an overglaze enamel design of four black geese in a grass opening among mullet plants.  Coil ring construction with a glazed interior.  Apocryphal four character Yongzheng (1723-1725) mark in red enamel.  Green glass cabochon stopper with a simple ivory spoon.  Height is 5.7 cm without stopper.        

Period: ca. late 19th century

Condition: Very good.  Interior wall areas caked with snuff which may be an indicator of use.

Provenance:  Purchase as part of a large oriental collection in 1979 from Anne & Ira Samuels, Trinidad, CA
                      Norm & Martha Stoneman, Eureka, CA

Robert 'Bob' Hall took a look at the bottle some years back at a snuff bottle convention and thought it was worth keeping.  Or maybe he just didn't want to hurt my feelings. 

Charll

   

[Joey Silver / Si Zhouyi 義周司]

Dear Charll,

   Definitely worth keeping as your first bottle.
Quality wise, not so much.
Was Bob trying to sell you something at the time?
How old were you when you first saw it?
What were the other bottles like?
In 1976, I visited Isadore Lample of Santa Monica CA.
I had 45 days leave from the IDF to visit my family in Canada.
I ‘took’ 10 days off to visit snuff bottle collectors in LA and SFO.
I was looking at Mr. Lample’s collection with an eye to buying it.
He had an octagonal red glass bottle from Hugh Moss.
I said it didn’t look Chinese.
I was right -  the shape was copying a European pocket watch.
But I was wrong - it was Beijing Palace Glassworks.
I didn’t buy Lample’s collection in the end.
His daughter, in her 40s, came to visit us in Israel,
and stayed for 3 weeks.
She mentioned that she had chosen a group of bottles to keep,
“Because I’ve loved them since I was a little girl.”
Lample started collecting when she was in mid 20s.
Turned out we’d negotiated the price based on my acquiring
the WHOLE collection, but she was going to skim off the ‘cream’.
We canceled the deal, of course, which irritated Iz Lample no end.
He’d not succeeded in pulling a fast one.
On that trip, I also met the late Gertrude Stuart and the late Eddie Dwyer,
as well as the late Lloyd Noakes of blessed memory.
Best,
Joey

[rpfstoneman]

Joey,

No, Bob was not trying to sell me anything.  I just asked his opinion on several bottles I had brought with me to the convention.

Well in 1979 I would have been 24.

All the other bottles out of that Samuels collection were about the same quality, which I’ll post as I have time.  None were any standouts or of any great value, but all have sentimental value to me.

Charll

[bambooforrest]

All of my first purchases including cinnabar [plastic], stone and some porcelain bottles have been recycled. A lucky find is this bottle [56mm] from my local antique store. It has a chip to the neck and some wear. A similar bottle sold from the Holden Collection.

[Joey Silver / Si Zhouyi 義周司]

Dear John,

    Among my first snuff bottles NONE were of plastic imitating cinnabar lacquer.
They were a much better quality of fake: a few layers of cinnabar lacquer
ON TOP of the plastic ! 
    I traded 12 of my first snuff bottles to a local dealer for a pair of late Meiji
 (ca. 1890 - 1910) or Taisho period (1911 - 1928) Japanese cloisonne vases,
About 15 cm / 6 inches high.
Later, I traded them 10 more rejects for a beautiful Limoges open serving bowl
About 25 cm / 10 inch in diameter and 13 cm / 5 inches in height, with a matching
Dish 28 cm in diameter.
Sadly, when we were shipping stuff after the passing of my late mother of blessed
Memory, the movers were useless and the bowl was broken.
Still, we did get 33 years of enjoyment out of it…

Best,
Joey

[rpfstoneman]

Here is another of the first bottles acquired in 1979. 



Porcelain Crackle Glaze Snuff Bottle:
Beige crackle glaze snuff bottle of baluster form with long narrowed neck.  Overglaze famille rose enamel design of pink and blue peonies and a moth.  Coil ring construction with glazed interior.  An unusual apocryphal four character Xuande (1426-1435) mark in underglaze cobalt blue.   Conical hat shape stopper of natural rose quartz with a simple pointed ivory spoon.  Height is 6.8 cm without stopper.        

Period: ca. late 19th century

Condition: Very good.  Interior wall areas caked with snuff which may be an indicator of use.

Provenance:  Purchase as part of a large oriental collection in 1979 from Anne & Ira Samuels, Trinidad, CA
                      Norm & Martha Stoneman, Eureka, CA

Charll

[Joey Silver / Si Zhouyi 義周司]

Dear Charll,

  The mark is ‘Da Ming Xuande’.
Very odd, since it should either be ‘Xuande Nianzhi’
 (Xuande Period Made), or Da Ming Xuande
(Great Ming Xuande Period Made), a six character mark.
In any event, a really badly made mark.
The bottle is indeed of the same quality as the previous one.
And Mazal Tov in a week or so.
Best,
Joey