Guys, I'm STRONGLY against spoons In inside painted bottles.
These are the reasons:
1. Spoons can scratch the painting, damaging it and lowering both its aesthetic and its material value.
2. I'm sorry, but most IPSBs were NOT used for snuff after the Early Period [1790s-1850s], George.
I do have a few from that period with staining from snuff.
But many were never used that way even in the Early Period.
And almost none were used to hold snuff from the Middle [ca.1860-1948] or Modern [1949-present] periods.
If they had been, you'd see snuff staining in A LOT MORE IPSBs.
Because there is no way to clean the snuff out, once snuff has been put in.
It leaves a serious stain, light brown usually [Thank G-D!], but sometimes an ugly reddish stain.
Like that in an Early Period bottle attributed to Gan Xuan which I bought from the collection of the late Paul Braga, a good friend and mentor [Bonhams HK, 24.Nov.2012, lot 87] via my dear late friend Erick Schiesse z"l from Portland OR.
The auction was on Shabbat so I couldn't participate; and this way I gave Erick, newly married to Allison, a bit of 'parnasa' {livelihood} from the 10% commission he charged on the hammer prices.
As ASDA supermarket ads say [in the UK & Ireland] "Every little bit helps".
Best,
Joey
3. When I look at a landscape inside an IPSB, I DON'T want to see a straight shaft going from the heavens to the earth.
Unless it is a Space Elevator transporting people and goods cheaply between Earth and a Geosynchronous orbit space station
Seriously, though. I try to picture myself in the beautiful rural Chinese landscape portrayed in the bottle, or watching the fish swimming so freely under water [the only way I can - I'm claustrophobic and can NOT scuba dive or even go in one of those civilian touring subs they have in Hawaii], and the spoon wrecks my ability to mentally place myself in the picture.
