Lot 3696. An Imperial Beijing enamel yellow-ground 'European Subject' snuff bottle, mark and period of Qianlong (1736-1795), 6 cm, 2 3/8  in. Estimate 700,000 — 900,000 HKD. Lot sold 875,000 HKD. Photo: Sotheby's. 

the ovoid body with a flat lip and slightly recessed, slightly convex foot surrounded by a protruding flat footrim, painted in famille-rose enamels on each main side with a panel enclosing a European subject, one depicting a bare-breasted woman wearing a scarf before a landscape with cottages nestled amongst green fields, the other with an old man and a young boy carrying a dog in their arms, all encircled by large floral blooms reserved on a bright yellow enamel ground, the rim and the foot with a white band, the interior of the neck with an additional metal lining below the lip, the base enamelled white and inscribed with a four-character mark in blue, all exposed metal gilt; stopper

Provenance: Hôtel Drouot, Paris, Etude Millon Jutheau, 2nd July 1984, illustrated on the cover.

Note: Another Beijing enamel snuff bottle in the Palace Museum, Beijing, similarly decorated with a panel on each side decorated with European subjects, one with a bare-breasted lady with a child, the reverse with similar iconography of an old man playing with a dog, possibly derived from contemporaneous European prints, is illustrated in The Complete Collection of Treasures of the Palace Museum. Snuff Bottles, Hong Kong, 2003, p. 112, no. 164. See also an example with near-identical decoration, including the design of flowers on a yellow-ground at the sides, in the Water, Pine and Stone Retreat collection, illustrated on e-yaji.com, no. 21.3.610. 

For another Beiing enamel snuff bottle sold at auction, see another rare example featuring bare-breasted ladies from the collection of Joe Grimberg, enamelled on both sides with scenes of European shepherdesses, sold in our New York rooms, 14th September 2010, lot 174. The rich floral design on yellow on the current bottles is also reminiscent of that on the Beijing enamel 'mille-fleurs' snuff bottle from the Mary and George Bloch collection, sold at Bonhams Hong Kong, 28th May 2010, lot 77.

Snuff bottles of this high quality enamelling, especially those with decorative motifs including European subjects so favoured by the Qianlong Emperor, were not only produced in Beijing, but also by private enamellers working at Guangzhou. A European-subject snuff bottle from the Qing court collection and still in Beijing, depicting ladies in a rustic landscape, is preserved in the Palace Museum, Beijing, and illustrated in The Complete Collection of Treasures, op.cit., p. 115, pl. 168, where it is divulged that it can be dated to 1779, as it is recorded that a customs supervisor in Guangzhou, Tu Minga, presented the Qianlong Emperor with a set of such snuff bottles, all created in Guangshou. Such commissions by high officials clearly looking for the most desirable gifts to present to the Emperor were clearly popular at the Court.

Sotheby's. Important Chinese Art, Hong Kong, 05 Apr 2017