A JET ‘CHILONG’ SNUFF BOTTLE, QING DYNASTY, 18TH - 19TH CENTURYCarved and polished black jet of pure and even structure. China, 18th-19th centuryAn almost absolutely flat bottle with two masterly carved, coiled Chilong in high relief, one climbing towards the top of each shoulder, their tails together cleverly forming the foot rim.Jet is a tough, compact black form of lignite, or coal, and therefore a fossilized organic material. The color is best described by the fact that it has lent its name to the quality of uncompromised blackness, as in 'jet-black'. It is light in weight and takes a very high surface polish. It is also soft enough to carve directly with a metal blade, bringing it within range of possible materials for the scholar-carver to express his own artistic feelings with his 'iron-brush'. Jet was also an appealing material because of its association with longevity, since one popular Chinese misconception was that it took amber a thousand years to form, and that after a thousand more years amber became jet. Shape: Flat round formHollowing: ExcellentMouth, neck and lip: Short oval sprawling neck, very small cylindric mouthBase: Formed of the two Chilong tails, with a small recessed oval base in its center; possibly original wooden base well carved with a meander border and four Ruyi shaped feetStopper: Matching jet stopperHeight of the bottle with stopper: 7 cm.Width of the mouth: 5 mm.Width of the neck: 18 mm.Condition: Very good, with two tiny, nearly invisible chips to one of the Chilong, extremely small nibbling to neck, some natural wearProvenance: French private collectionLiterature comparison: The Meriem Collection Important Chinese Snuff Bottles, Part II. Christies, New York, March 19th, 2008, lot 260. Snuff Bottles from the Mary & George Bloch Collection: Part IX. Sotheby’s, Hong Kong, November 24th, 2014, lot 151. (for two other, yet plain jet snuff bottles of the same period) Chinese Works of Art. Sotheby’s, New York, March 23rd, 2004, lot 165. (for a carved jet snuff bottle) Hugh Moss, Victor Graham and Ka Bo Tsang, A Treasury of Chinese Snuff Bottles: The Mary and George Bloch Collection, vol. 7, Part 2, Hong Kong, 2007, no. 1603. (for another jet bottle with Chilong carved in a quite similar manner, described as ‘possibly imperial, 1760-1840’ and indicating that ‘the subject of chi dragons […] strongly suggests a courtly connection’)十八至十九世紀黑玉“螭龍“鼻烟壺品相極好，一螭龍身上有兩道及不可見的細紋，頸部有極小磕碰，有一些自然年代磨損法國私人收藏