Bottle ID: 707

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CYLINDRICAL, COPPER-RED GLAZE

Date: 1850-1900

Height: 71 mm

A porcelain snuff bottle, of tapering cylindrical form, with shoulders sloping to a cylindrical neck, the body covered overall in a deep finely-streaked copper-red, "oxblood" glaze, thinning at the mouth to a pale hue, the deep foot glazed white.
Attributed to Jingde Zhen.

Similar Examples:

None found.

Provenance:

Cottone Auctions, NY., March 30, 2014, lot 38

The ruby-red color of the glaze covering this bottle is derived from copper, and is very hard to control in the kiln. Copper-red glazes were used from the Song Dynasty onwards, reaching a height in terms of decorative quality in the Ming Dynasty, during the Wanli Period. After the 16th century, the technique of covering the whole surface with the glaze was lost, only to be revived in the Qing Dynasty. Often monochrome glazed snuff bottles were made by the workshops in Jingdezhen as miniature porcelain samples to illustrate what the workshop could produce both in terms of form and glaze. In the case of a copper-red glaze, it was far easier to show a potential buyer the miniature form of a larger piece than to show the larger piece which had far more potential for error.

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