清嘉慶 粉彩麻姑獻壽紋鼻烟壺 礬紅四字篆書款

The present bottle is part of a well-known group of bottles, made for the Court, usually in sets of ten or twenty, to supply the enormous and constant supply of bottles required for the Imperial family and for distribution as gifts. See snuff bottles of similar shape but different design in Snuff bottles in the Collection of the National Palace Museum, Taipei, 1991, pp. 119 and 127. Compare with a very similar Jiaqing mark and period snuff bottle in the collections of the Palace Museum in Beijing (inv. no. gu-00155399).