Scu, China, carving, jade

The bottle is a flattened flask form of milky white nephrite jade with a tawny brown inclusion. It has convex sides and a stopper of turquoise and coral. A man is depicted sitting in a rocky landscape with plants and an overhanging tree. The reverse is uncarved. There is no foot but a slight indentation in the base, oval in shape.
The carving is subtle and fine, and is of the quality attributed to the 'Suzhou School'. A date prior to 1850 can be argued here on the basis that there was downturn in the technical quality of Chinese crafts in the 1850s and '60s. Fine work was again produced from the 1870s onwards, but although this bottle could have been made in the later period, the decoration is so firmly grounded in Chinese taste and tradition that an earlier dating seems more plausible. Moreover, supplies of jade available for carving declined drastically after 1862 . The significance of the 'one-sidedness' of decoration here is difficult to determine. In many hardstone snuff bottles it is the presence of an inclusion or of a 'skin' of different coloured stone that determines the placing of decorative carving, and when this taste for cleverly incorporating the inclusions is dominant, areas without inclusions are used as the back of the bottle and remain uncarved. However, there is a small inclusion on the back of this bottle, and the craftsman has not been tempted to carve it, so this bottle may have been carved at a time when the urge to use every wisp of inclusion in the stone was not an overriding one, or for a clientele for whom this was not a tenet of taste. The stopper incorporates half a coral bead, with the bore-hole clearly visible.

Salting Bequest

Bequeathed by Mr. George Salting, accessioned in 1910. This acquisition information reflects that found in the Asia Department registers, as part of a 2022 provenance research project.

Snuff is powdered tobacco, usually blended with aromatic herbs or spices. The habit of snuff-taking spread to China from the West during the 17th century and became established in the 18th century. People generally carried snuff in a small bottle. By the 20th century these bottles had become collectors' items, owing to the great variety of materials and decorative techniques used in their production.

C.1833&A-1910