SEVEN CHINESE BLUE AND WHITE SNUFF BOTTLES

SEVEN CHINESE BLUE AND WHITE SNUFF BOTTLES
QING DYNASTY

One of rectangular section decorated with roundels depicting a scholar and his attendant, with a four-character Qianlong mark; another cylindrical, painted with two scholars by a sampan in a watery landscape, with a six-character Yongzheng mark; and two ovoid examples, one with a scholar and two boys in a garden, the other with five tigers, with four-character Yongzheng and Qianlong marks; together with a baluster-shaped example with traces of polychrome decoration; another of pebble form, with roundels on an underglaze-red ground; and one of a small ovoid shape with a soft-paste body, 8cm max. (7)

Provenance: from the collection of Colonel William Edmund Pye (1872-1949). Commissioned into the British Army in 1892, he served with the Indian Army in Tirah between 1897-98, then in 1900 was sent to China as the leader of the British Section of the International Police. It was at this time he started his collection, which has passed by decent to the current owner. Other items from his collection were sold at Christie’s South Kensington, 13th May 2011.