Bottle ID: 00120

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BLUE SAPPHIRE, TRANSPARENT, SMALL ROUNDED FORM

Date: 1730-1800

Height: 43 mm

Glass, of transparent sapphire-blue, of small rounded form with everted lip and slightly concave foot.

Possibly Imperial, attributed to the Palace Workshops, Beijing.

Similar Examples:

Crane Collection nos. 270 and 444.
Kleiner, Robert. Treasures from the Sanctum of Enlightened Respect, Chinese Snuff Bottles from the Collection of Denis Low, 1999, p. 88, no. 71.

Provenance:

Clare Lawrence Ltd.
The Monimar Collection
Clare Lawrence Ltd.
Sotheby's, New York, June 5, 1987, lot 38
Janos Szekeres

Exhibited:

Annual Convention ICSBS Toronto, October 2007

Published:

Lawrence, Clare. Chinese Snuff Bottles From the Dick Hardy Collection and other sources, 1991, p. 22, no. 35

Both the enamel workshops and the glass workshops in the Palace produced bottles that tended to be small in size, which were quickly becoming a favorite of the Court. Snuff itself could be very expensive and it may have been that a miniature bottle brought out in the Court indicated to observers that the quality of snuff it contained must therefore be very high. Western snuff bottle collectors, in the second half of the twentieth century, believed that miniature bottles must have belonged to women, who were also known as snuff takers. However, Prof. Victor Graham eventually debunked this theory when he translated an inscription on a small bottle, finding it to be a description of drunken reverie in the mountains!

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