A blue jadeite snuff bottle. 1770-1850. photo courtesy Sotheby's

superbly well hollowed, of rounded form with a flared neck, the oval foot slightly concave, the stone of pale blue with a hint of gray color and faint snowy white inclusions; height 1 7/8 in., 4.8 cm. Estimate 12,000—15,000 USD. Lot Sold 9,375 USD

PROVENANCE: Dr. Louis Walmsley Collection.
Vanessa F. Holden.

NOTE: Dr. Louis Walmsley, one of the earlier owners of this bottle, was a Canadian missionary stationed in Chengdu during the 1930s until the arrival of the Communists in 1949, when he returned to Canada. Many of his other Chinese works of art can be seen in The Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto. Dr. Walmsley's family described how various members of the village where they lived would come to him with snuff bottles wrapped in cloth, and he would buy them to help support the villagers.

Blue is a color rarely found on jadeite, and the present bottle is a superb example of this type. One in The J & J Collection is illustrated in Hugh Moss, Victor Graham and Ka Bo Tsang, The Art of the Chinese Snuff Bottle: The J & J Collection, New York, 1993, Volume I, p. 121, pl. 59.

Sotheby's. The Joe Grimberg Collection of Chinese Snuff Bottles, 14 Sep 10, New York www.sothebys.com