Bottle ID: 00644

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TURQUOISE, CARVED W/ETERNAL KNOT, BAT & LANDSCAPE SCENE

Date: 1730-1770

Height: 67 mm

Glass, of flattened pear shape, tapering to a slightly everted wide mouth and with an oval footrim, the semi-opaque turquoise-green glass carved in low relief with on one main side a bat suspending a ring from which hangs an endless knot, with tassels dangling down to touch the formalized waves below; the reverse with a leafy fruiting tree, with five ripe peaches, issuing from rockwork; the two sides carved with a Taihu rock beneath a scrolling cloud, one with lingzhi fungus growing from its craggy face.

Imperial, attributed to the Palace Workshops, Beijing

Similar Examples:

Hall, Robert.  Chinese Snuff Bottles II, 1989, p. 104, no. 84.
Moss, Hugh, Victor Graham and Ka Bo Tsang.  A Treasury of Chinese Snuff Bottles - The Mary and George Bloch Collection, 2002, Vol. 5, Part 2, pp. 533-535, no. 927.

Provenance:

Hugh Moss [HK] Ltd.
Universal, Taipei, Taiwan, April 2005
Peter Lee, Hong Kong, 2005

Exhibited:

Annual Convention ICSBS Toronto, October 2007

The majority of eighteenth century carved monochrome glass bottles produced in the Palace Workshops were executed in colors such as ruby-red or opaque yellow.  While opaque turquoise was an eighteenth century color seen more often in plain monochrome glass bottles and other objects, it is rare to find a carved version.  Decoration on "Palace" pieces tended to be highly formalized, although when naturalstic designs are used, as in the case here, it is with the intention of representing symbolic themes such as longevity and immortality.  The division of the two sides of the bottle by Taihu rocks is a masterpiece of composition, at once bringing together and separating the predominant themes of this bottle.

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