C26 A “Filial piety” snuff bottle

Description

Description:  Chinese snuff bottle of cylindrical form, decorated in underglaze cobalt blue and copper red with one of the 24 “Filial piety” stories of the Chinese Classic. The story here is called 鹿乳奉亲….. (Finding deer milk for the parent). A filial boy has aging parents that had eye problem, the medicine that was prescribed call for fresh deer milk. The son therefore went into the woods and camouflage himself as a baby deer every day in order to collect deer milk for his parent. One day, while he was collecting deer milk, a group of Hunters arrived and the deer escape, leaving him behind. Luckily, he was able to identify himself before being shot dead. The hunters, after know how filial he is, help him with his deer milk collection until his parent recover from the eye disease. However, the 2 characters in the bottle with flags behind them are costume typically wore by high-ranking army generals. Maybe a slightly different version of the story whereby hunters became generals. The last picture is showing the boy camouflaging himself with a deer’ skin. The shoulder of the bottle is decorated with key fret design on a cracked ice background.

Mark:  A circular motif

Dating:  Second half of 19^th century

Material:  Porcelain, glazed inside.

Size:  82 mm high

Stopper:  Jasper stopper with ivory spoon

Provenance:  Antiquarian market

References:

Notes:  The Twenty-four Paragons of Filial Piety (二十四孝), is a classic text of Confucian filial piety written by Guo Jujing (郭居敬) during the Yuan dynasty (1260–1368). The text was extremely influential in the medieval Far East and was used to teach Confucian moral values. The scene depicted on this bottle is mentioned as #6 in the text, as follow: He Fed His Parents with Doe’s Milk (鹿乳奉亲; 鹿乳奉親). It is related to the story of Tan Zi (郯子) originated in the Spring and Autumn Period: “Tan Zi’s elderly parents were losing their sense of sight and believed that doe’s milk could cure them. Upon hearing that, Tan Zi covered himself with deer’s skin and got close to a doe to obtain its milk. He repeated the process every day. Once, a hunter mistook him for a real deer and almost killed him, but Tan Zi revealed himself and explained the situation to the hunter.”