Dear Charll,
I just saw this post.
I had two Imperial Palace Workshops jade bottles, both originally with Qianlong marks.
one, which Sotheby's claims is the true colour of Muttonfat Jade, a creamy rosy beige, has a perfect Qianlong nianzhi mark, and is now in another collection, was stolen out of the Palace between 1911 and 1924, most probably by a Eunuch to 'contribute' to his 'pension fund'
. It was purchased in Beijing by an English seacaptain in 1925.
The second, a pure white, but otherwise the mate to the first, was stolen between 1890 and 1911, and had most of the mark ground off. One can still recognise part of the 'Qian' character, the 'dog's tail' of Mrs. Lilla Perry's mnemonic trick (pronounced "nemonic' - the first 'm' is not heard. Just learned that, after mispronouncing the word for almost 46 years!
).
This bottle was probably purchased by a Chinese collector in Beijing in 1909, and was 'liberated' by a Japanese officer in Beijing in 1937, and it had gotten to Nakatani & Co., in Chicago by 1940. It was part of the stock of Nakatani & Co., frozen by the US gov't after 7.Dec.1941, and returned to Mr. Nakatani and his nephew Mr. Saito, in the late 1940s.
They sold it to a local collector a few years later, and in the 1980s, it was bought back as part of the now late collector's estate from her children by Mr. Saito. He was by this time the owner of the firm after his uncle's death, and had changed the firm's name to "Saito & Co. (Formerly Nakatani & Co.)".
He could not have paid very much, since I got it for US$120!
But it seems the reason to grind off the Imperial mark is as the late Robert Kleiner suggested, rather than Giovanni's also plausible suggestion.
While it may have no bearing on this issue, if you look at # 109 in "Dragon", you will see a bottle of mine from the Imperial kilns from ca.1780-1820. However, the base which may well have had a genuine Qianlong or Jiaqing Imperial mark, was covered in slip and refired and then painted with an Imperial 4 character Xianfeng nianzhi mark. This may well have been done after the Imperial kilns were destroyed in 1855.
Best,
Shabbat Shalom,
Joey
