Bottle ID: 00089

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BLUE COBALT, OPAQUE W/CARVED OVOID PANELS

Date: 1730-1800

Height: 70 mm

Glass, opaque cobalt-blue, of flattened elongated ovoid form with sloping shoulders and a neatly carved footrim, the front and reverse carved with recessed ovoid panels following the shape of the bottle.

Possibly Imperial, attributed to the Palace Workshops, Beijing.

Similar Examples:

Hall, Robert.  Chinese Snuff Bottles II, 1989, p. 105, no. 85.
Hall, Robert.  Chinese Snuff Bottles IV, 1991, p. 78, no. 78.
Moss, Hugh, Victor Graham and Ka Bo Tsang.  A Treasury of Chinese Snuff Bottles - The Mary and George Bloch Collection, 2002, Vol. 5, Part 3, p. 576, no. 950.

Provenance:

Clare Lawrence Ltd.
The Monimar Collection
Robert Hall

Exhibited:

Annual Convention ICSBS Toronto, October 2007

 

This is an unusual blue color for a monochrome glass bottle.  Despite its opacity, it has some translucency in bright light.  It owes its legacy to the powder-blue ceramic glaze that appears mainly on dishes, and often with gilded decoration, from the Kangxi period.  This example is unlikely to have been made before the Qianlong period as glass imitations of other materials were not fashionable in the Court before then.  It is worth considering the possibility that this was an enamel 'blank' as its form lends itself to that idea with its central recessed panel.  The Crane Collection is rich in famille rose enamel on glass bottles with examples not only in milk-white, but also in a wide variety of opaque and semi-opaque colors.

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