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Charll shared this beautiful Xianfeng (1851-1861) dated bottle depicting NeZha combating the Dragon King amongst a rolling sea of blue and eight mythical sea creatures.


Chinese Snuff Bottle Discussion Forum 中國鼻煙壺討論論壇
March 28, 2024, 11:29:07 am
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Xuande Mark Blue & White Landscape Bottle

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rpfstoneman
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« on: May 04, 2012, 07:26:12 pm »

Blue and White Landscape Porcelain Snuff Bottle-

Although the pictures are not great, this is the latest bottle to the collection.  Had some time to post while the heat of the day (a cool 97 degrees F) has driven me inside for the day here in Ajo, Arizona. 

This is what some term as “fire cracker” bottle shape with an under glaze cobalt blue landscape design.  The scene is of a fisherman in a small boat  fishing near the shoreline on a rather large lake with a tree studded mountainous backdrop.  Glass imitating coral stopper with a simulated turquoise glass collar.  Height is 6.8 cm (2 5/8th inches) without the stopper.

This bottle has a Xuande (Ming Emperor Xuan Zong) six character mark (1426-1435) in two horizontal lines.  The mark is considered as a tribute to the fine blue and white porcelains produced during the Xuaude period.  Bottle is actually thought to be from the first half of the 19th century (1800-1850). 

This bottle was purchased from Bob Lee (Jin Hing Company) and came to him out of the Agatha Aronson collection.

Any comments to further ID information and/or date corrections is appreciated.  Enjoy, Charll

« Last Edit: January 19, 2020, 11:27:09 pm by George » Report Spam   Logged

Charll K Stoneman, Eureka, California USA, Collector Since 1979.

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« Reply #1 on: May 04, 2012, 09:04:03 pm »

Hi Charll,

Very nice bottle, Good painting, the calligraphy on mark is good too. I think the date could be right(Jia qing period to Daoguang period . Or it could be a little bit later than 1850( tongzhi period), since the quality of the clay is not that pure according to the base rim we can see.

Steven
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« Reply #2 on: May 04, 2012, 10:12:43 pm »

Very pretty ..

I like the nice wide opening. Is the cork on the stopper that wide ?

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Joey Silver / Si Zhouyi 義周司
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« Reply #3 on: May 09, 2012, 07:33:46 am »

Charll, Gorgeous bottle from a great collection! Congrats!
  Agatha Aronson, who I believe is in a home if she's still alive (I used to call her at least once a month to connect, till a year or so ago, when she was put in a home by her sons, and they said it disturbed her to hear from me, because she had senile dementia), is an amazing person and was a very serious collector, extremely knowledgeable and extremely focussed.
Agatha was born in Szeged, Hungary; after seeing her father wrapped in barbed wire with 20-30 other Jews who couldn't work, and pushed into the Danube near Budapest, to drown, she was shipped to Auschwitz, towards the end of WWII, where two of her siblings, twins, were used by Mengele as human guinea pigs (the 'control' sister survived; the 'subject' brother, not) ; she survived because of 'acrobatic skills' entertaining the SS (that's how she described it to me; I didn't ask for details), and because she was delegated to help take care of some of Mengele's 'experiment subjects' including her siblings.
  In 1946, she got to the Land of Israel (British Mandatory 'Palestine'); in 1948, she was an Israeli soldier fighting to keep Israel from being overrun by the Arabs. In 1949, she met Irving Aronson, who'd been in the US Air Force in Europe, and after seeing the results of the Holocaust, got to the Land of Israel to help defend the newly reborn Jewish state. They married in 1950, and Irv brought her back to the USA, where they moved to Coronado, CA, since he'd gone into defence contracting.
  1968-1970, she started to collect Chinese snuff bottles, and became a very knowledgeable collector. She was a mentor to me, and I tried to keep up contact. I met her first in 1978, so we were close over 33 years. A wonderful lady, and an amazing survivor.
  I would concur with the info Bob Lee gave you, although Steven's point is well taken. However, the important thing is the superb quality. I believe I've got an example or two, similar views, mark, quality. I'll compare with my bottles and 'revert' to you ('Revert' is Irish solicitor-ese (lawyer-ese) for 'get back' to you). ;-)
Joey
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Tom B.
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« Reply #4 on: November 17, 2012, 10:39:29 pm »

Hello everyone,

Just a sad note to add to this thread - it seems that Agatha Aronson died a few months ago. A portion of her collection has been sold on eBay over the last few weeks. There were quite a few rare and desirable works of art in porcelain, jade, carved lacquer, blanc-de-Chine, etc.  There were also about 50 lots of snuff bottles and snuff dishes sold today.  I bought 5 of them including a damaged one just for the nice old porcelain stopper. 

Did anyone else happen to buy any of them?

Best regards,

Tom Boyle

P.S. My apologies for my long absence from the forum, but some personal priorities have forced me to curtail extracurricular activities the last few months.  I will strive to be active at least sporadically in the future.
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Tom B.

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« Reply #5 on: November 17, 2012, 11:05:04 pm »

Tom, I appreciate your sentiments, but understand from Bob Lee that Agatha is still alive, but has deteriorated further, medically and mentally.
   Her sons have sold most of her stuff to Bob Lee. He bunged the cheaper stuff onto eBay, and is selling the best stuff himself. He has put a group of 20 or so snuff bottles in auction  in Bonham's Hong Kong, lots 695 to 715 on the 24th of Nov., in the auction at 4:00 PM , after the Paul Braga sale that morning at 10:00 or 10:30 AM.
The estimates are very low. Go for it Guys!
Joey
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« Reply #6 on: November 18, 2012, 12:14:21 pm »


Did anyone else happen to buy any of them?

Best regards,

Tom Boyle

P.S. My apologies for my long absence from the forum, but some personal priorities have forced me to curtail extracurricular activities the last few months.  I will strive to be active at least sporadically in the future.


Hi Tom,

Welcome back, I was watching the sale, I think they did well on ebay, I was trying to bid some of snuff dishes, but the price were out of my budget.

Steven
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« Reply #7 on: November 18, 2012, 12:17:04 pm »

Tom,

Yes, I saw these and recognized quickly that there were a number of quality items in the mix.  Bid on a number of them myself, but the prices went beyond what I was willing to pay.  I thought most of the dishes were of very good quality, and the only bottle I was interested in was the turquoise monochrome.  You'll have to let us know more specifically what you managed to pick up.  By-the-way, good to hear from you,  Charll
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Charll K Stoneman, Eureka, California USA, Collector Since 1979.

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« Reply #8 on: November 18, 2012, 01:42:25 pm »

Dear Tom,
all. I too have followed those auctions on ebay. Some interesting pieces, but the prices was really too high. Some was really crazy in my opinion. I was interested in the small dish with Jun glaze. Has it been bought from some of you here?
One of the dishes was a rhino horn and was sold for 1,000 US$. Another nice one in my opinion was the b&w one with the boat painted on the base.
Kind regards
Giovanni
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« Reply #9 on: November 18, 2012, 04:27:42 pm »

Tom,
I apologise - I was so caught up in the info, I forgot to welcome you back. You are most welcome, and I hope the issues which caused you to understandably spend less time on fun stuff like the Forum, are solved in the best way. You have been missed.c
Best,
Joey
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« Reply #10 on: November 18, 2012, 05:46:00 pm »

Yes, welcome back Tom !
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« Reply #11 on: November 18, 2012, 08:46:19 pm »

Hello everyone,

Thank you for the warm welcome back wishes and yes, I have missed you all very much.  I will just have to make the time to join the fun by being more organized.  That is a tall order for someone like me, but I need to get my stuff together now that I am coming of age.  The big SIXTY-FIVE (65) is just a week away and I need to come out of denial about it.  I have been bombarded all year with phone calls from every health insurance salesman in the USA; it seems s that Medicare is big business.  For all of the calls I still haven't even looked into it - procrastination is my biggest fault.  That is the reason that I didn't make it to Portland for the convention, I put off making reservations and then it no longer fit into my schedule.

As far as Agatha Aronson is concerned Jon of design One in the guy selling on eBay claims that it is an Estate sale from 95 year old Agatha and that he is working with the Executor's lawyers. The following is a reply to a question I asked Jon in early October when I bought a nice Ming Lacquer Seal-paste box from the same "estate".  

"Honestly, it came from a very high end estate and was in storage since an appraisal done in the early 1990's. So not sure when or if it was redone. If it was, it was done in the 1970's or 1980's. The quality items I have up for auction are also from the estate. Also the stuff that has been sold the last month. She had a huge collection of snuff bottles and wrote several books. Will be listing more this month, from the same collection. I will try to get you another image of the mark tomorrow. I have a photo of the mark and you can use the zoom box on Ebay photos. Thank you and talk soon.
Jon"

And the following in response to a question I asked about a fabulous early 17th century Blanc-de-Chine figure that was sold for $5,388.00 - I am very sorry that I was the underbidder at $5,288.00 and in hindsight I wish that I had bid twice that amount.  

"Hi Ed, there is no way to make out the characters in the box. I tried to look make them out and photograph them, but had no luck. The ladies name of the estate was Agatha Aronson. She was personal friends with Wang Xisan and wrote several books. I have several paintings by this artist, no snuff bottles but got about forty other nice snuff bottles. Some other cool stuff too. Was a very deep collection. have some nice ivory but tough to sell. Thank you and talk soon.
Jon"

He went on in another email about having the Wang Xisan paintings at Christies and that they were unsure about the estimates since there haven’t been any paintings by him sold in the past.  I have dealt with him over the years and I will ask if he can verify her condition.  As I said before I bought 5 of the bottles and want to wait to see them in person before admitting which ones - they were not cheap but I am still hoping there was a bargain or two among them.  

Wow Giovanni, my old friend from Gotheborg, is here too.   Over on that forum I go by Ed, my middle name.  And no I am not mad at you for misunderstanding the Imperial Lacquer snuff bottle that was sold by Christies in March 2012 for a world record Auction price of Lacquer snuff bottles.  The reason I love Chinese lacquer is that I am an expert of that material and very few others are.  I had a long series of emails with Hugh Moss when I showed him another extremely rare Qianlong Imperial cinnabar red lacquer on a dark green lacquer ground snuff bottle; he has never seen another one like it, so he was initially skeptical about its authenticity from the photos alone.  Naturally he would have recognized it as the real deal from a personal inspection.  He did finally accept it as genuine when I showed him the lot it was found in.  That is correct; the auctioneer put it in with 7 other snuff bottles and I bought them very cheaply.  Smiley  

Well I have to quit talking and get back to my chores, but I will post some interesting comments about Giovanni’s carved lacquer snuff bottle tomorrow.  Steven, Charll, George, Peter, and Joey I will be in touch with the private message system.  

Best regards,

Tom
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Tom B.

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« Reply #12 on: November 18, 2012, 10:25:22 pm »

Welcome back Tom,

I only joined in July this year, so have seen very few posts from you in that time. Noting your intention to take a more active part, it will help avoid confusion if I change my sign in name to Thomas.

George, how do I go about doing that?
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« Reply #13 on: November 19, 2012, 01:22:21 am »

Tom B.,
   Agatha was a fanatical collector! She had Ban Chiang ware (sp.?) from Thailand, Khmer bronzes, blanc de chine, overlay glass (not only SBs), ancient glass from Israel, yixing teapots, rose medallion, etc., etc. And she was knowledgeable in those subjects, too.
   Joey
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« Reply #14 on: November 19, 2012, 01:54:11 am »


He has put a group of 20 or so snuff bottles in auction  in Bonham's Hong Kong, lots 695 to 715 on the 24th of Nov., in the auction at 4:00 PM , after the Paul Braga sale that morning at 10:00 or 10:30 AM.


Joey,
   All the lots you mention are inside painted bottles, immediately preceded by several others from Y.F Yang. Two questions:

1. What happened to all the other "good" bottles from her collection?
2. Are the Y.F. Yang bottles from his personal collection?

Tom
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« Reply #15 on: November 19, 2012, 02:14:30 am »

Dear Tom B., how nice to meet you here! I admit that last night when I read your family name I thought to myself that you probably were on Gotheborg, so I went there and did check the names but I only found Ed. I indeed wonder if you could be the same person using different given names. Glad to shake your hand here too, and whish you a good 65 birthday next week (I am 66).
When I start to read your post above and found who you are, I thought about the lacquer bottle that I have posted here, will be glad to hear you on that. There are two bottles actually, but one is fake.
As for the collection of Ms. Agatha Aronson, last night I ahve seen that there are more items on sale by the same vendor. I must say that the porcelain items are not on the same level of the snuff bottles, most are reproduction.
Kind regards
Giovanni
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« Reply #16 on: November 19, 2012, 09:30:06 am »

Hello all,

Nice to meet you Tom (Wattana) and since you are so active on the forum I have changed my signature to Tom B. as suggested by Joey's post.  I have a lot of catching up to do with all of the discussions that have taken place this year.  I am sure that Joey has more knowledge of the history of Agatha’s collection, but it is my understanding that the majority of the snuff bottles were sold at auction in the 1990’s.

I envy you Joey for having known Agatha so well, she apparently was a remarkable person with a vast knowledge of Asian art & antiques.  A few of her books were sold this past weekend and besides many ‘autographed by the author’ Snuff Bottle books there were also books on Yixing, cloisonne, ceramics, artists, etc.  By the way, did you buy the Wang Xisan ISPB of Cixi directly from Agatha?

Hey Giovanni, it is a small world for sure.  If you liked snuff bottles before joining this forum, I am sure you will become a fanatic now.  Thanks for the well wishes and I am glad to see that you are just as sharp in your analytical skills as before you went “over the hill” (turned 65).  

I am starting a thread on Agatha Aronson in the private members area since it is an ongoing sale.
 
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Tom B.

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« Reply #17 on: November 19, 2012, 09:50:23 pm »


Nice to meet you Tom (Wattana) and since you are so active on the forum I have changed my signature to Tom B. as suggested by Joey's post.


Hi Tom,

That is most magnanimous of you, especially as you have been a member of this forum longer than I.
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