Bottle ID: 00188

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YUANMING YUAN, BLUE, CRICKET & FLOWERS

Date: 1767-1799

Height: 46 mm

Glass, cobalt-blue with interior crizzling, of small, flattened rounded form, each main side with a raised circular panel, the shoulders tapering to the neck and with a slightly everted lip, and with a neatly carved footrim, decorated in famille rose enamels within the circular vignette with on one side,a grasshopper alighting on chrysanthemum flowers and daisies which grow from convoluted rockwork; the reverse with a similar scene of a grasshopper on flowering prunus beside daisies.

Imperial, attributed to the Palace Workshops, Yuanming Yuan.

Similar Examples:

Crane Collection no. 347.
Sotheby's, Billinghurst, June 25, 1991, lot 345.
Moss, Hugh, Victor Graham and Ka Bo Tsang. The Art of the Chinese Snuff Bottle - The J & J Collection, 1993, Vol. I, p. 377, no. 219; and p. 380, no. 222.

Provenance:

Robert Hall
Sotheby Park Bernet, Inc., New York, October 3, 1980, lot 82

Exhibited:

Annual Convention ICSBS Toronto, October 2007

From the Archival records of the Imperial Household Department, it is documented that in 1771 (36th year of Qianlong, and four years after the Jian Yuan was constructed), the Emperor composed a poem on the Jian Yuan. In it he wrote that the Garden was surrounded by clean, clear water, especially when seen from the mirrors in the Pavilion; and further that the lake water appeared to be like glass. This was the prime reason for naming the Garden Jian Yuan - the Garden of Reflection. This theme of gardens and water is itself continually reflected in many Guyue Xuan marked bottles with their naturalistic subject matter of highly symbolic flora and fauna.

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