The bottle is carved to depict nine cinnabar-red Buddhist lions biting at black tasselled balls on an ochre ground between bands of black ruyi heads; with a matching stopper, 6.3cm.
Three colour lacquer snuff bottles are exceptionally rare.
A small number of such bottles were made in Japan between about 1860 and 1920, but this bottle is undoubtedly Chinese, 18th Century and attributable to the Beijing Palace Workshops.
