Please note this Lot is to be sold at No Reserve. 本拍品不設底價

China, 1740-1820. Of flattened globular form, deftly carved to each side with a scene from the Journey to the West, one side with Zhu Bajie disguised as a monk in a bath with beautiful ladies, about to discard his robes and join them in the water with a lustful expression on his face, the other with Tang Sanzang surrounded by court ladies, all on a variety of diaper grounds, the neck with a band of ruyi-heads. The recessed oval base neatly incised with a four-character mark Qianlong nianzhi and probably of the period.

Provenance: Previously in a Scottish private collection.
Condition: Very good condition with minor wear and few tiny nicks.

Stopper: Pearl
Weight: 50.2 g
Dimensions: Height incl. stopper 67 mm. Diameter neck 15 mm and mouth 4 mm

Journey to the West (Xi You Ji) is a Chinese novel published in the 16th century during the Ming dynasty and attributed to Wu Cheng'en. It is regarded as one of the greatest Classic Chinese Novels, and has been described as arguably the most popular literary work in East Asia. The novel is an extended account of the legendary pilgrimage of the Tang dynasty Buddhist monk Xuanzang, who traveled to the ‘Western Regions’ (Central Asia and India) to obtain Buddhist sacred texts and returned after many trials and much suffering. The monk is referred to as Tang Sanzang in the novel, which retains the broad outline of Xuanzang's own account, Great Tang Records on the Western Regions, but adds elements from folk tales and the author's invention: Gautama Buddha gives a task to the monk and provides him with three protectors who agree to help him as atonement for their sins. These disciples are Sun Wukong, Zhu Bajie, and Sha Wujing, together with a dragon prince who acts as Tang Sanzang's steed, a white horse. The pilgrims then journey towards enlightenment through the power and virtue of cooperation.

Zhu Bajie (literally ‘Pig of the Eight Prohibitions’) is also known as Zhu Wuneng (‘Pig Awakened to Power’). Once an immortal who was the Marshal of the Heavenly Canopy commanding 100,000 naval soldiers of the Milky Way, he drank too much during a celebration of the gods and attempted to harass the moon goddess Chang'e, resulting in his banishment to the mortal world. He was supposed to be reborn as a human but ended up in the womb of a sow due to an error on the Reincarnation Wheel, which turned him into a half-man, half-pig, humanoid-pig monster. Zhu Bajie was very greedy, and could not survive without eating ravenously. Staying within the Yunzhan Dong (cloud-pathway cave), he was commissioned by Guanyin to accompany Tang Sanzang to India and given the new name Zhu Wuneng. However, Zhu Bajie's lust for women led him to the Gao Family Village, where he posed as a handsome young man and helped defeat a group of robbers who tried to abduct a maiden. Eventually, the family agreed to let Zhu Bajie marry the maiden. But on the day of the wedding, he drank too much alcohol and accidentally returned to his original form. His lust for women, extreme laziness, and greediness made his spirituality the lowest in the group, and he remained on Earth and was granted the title "Cleaner of the Altars," with the duty of cleaning every altar at every Buddhist temple for eternity by eating excess offerings.

Expert’s note: The present lot belongs to a group of carved cinnabar lacquer snuff bottles which are probably imperial and attributable to the Palace workshops in Beijing. The addition of the incised Qianlong reign mark, which is most likely of the period, makes this bottle an especially rare example.



清代《西游記》剔犀鼻煙壺，或爲御製
中國，1740-1820年。扁圓形鼻煙壺，橢圓圈足。兩面分別雕刻《西游記》中豬八戒人物場景，可能爲女兒國的故事。頸部飾如意紋，肩部寶珠紋。圈足内雕刻“乾隆年製”。

來源：蘇格蘭私人收藏。
品相：狀況極好，有輕微磨損和一些小劃痕。

壺蓋：珍珠
重量：50.2 克
尺寸：含蓋高 67 毫米，頸部直徑15 毫米，口部直徑 4 毫米

《西遊記》是一部中國古典名著，出版於十六世紀，作者為吳承恩，是東亞最受歡迎的文學作品之一。小說描述唐代高僧玄奘帶領四位弟子西去西域求取佛經，歷經千辛萬苦歸來的傳奇朝聖故事。豬八戒，即豬悟能，曾為天蓬元帥，統領十萬銀河水軍，因一次酒後騷擾嫦娥，被放逐到凡間。本該重生為人，卻因輪迴出錯，落入母豬腹中，變成了半人半豬的豬怪。豬八戒很貪吃，後受觀音之託隨唐三藏赴印度。廣爲流傳的是高老莊的故事。

專家注釋：本拍品剔犀鼻煙壺，或爲宮廷御製，出自北京宮廷作坊。加上乾隆年款，很可能來自那個時期，特別罕見。