Bottle ID: 00335

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GREEN EMERALD, OPAQUE, CARVED W/INSECTS & VEGETATION

Date: 1736-1795

Height: 54 mm

Glass, of flattened rounded form, tapering to a long neck and with a wide mouth, of slightly opaque emerald-green tone, carved in low relief on one side with a preying mantis seated on the leaf of a huge cabbage, the reverse with a butterfly in flight above a chrysanthemum and flowering lotus issuing from convoluted rockwork.

Possibly Imperial, attributed to the Palace Workshops, Beijing.

Similar Examples:

Friedman, Pamela R. Lessing.  Chinese Snuff Bottles from the Pamela R. Lessing Friedman Collection, 1990, pp. 52-53, no. 30.

Provenance:

Clare Lawrence Ltd.
Sotheby's, New York, October 25, 1997, lot 11
The Gerry P. Mack Collection

Exhibited:

Annual Convention ICSBS Toronto, October 2007

It has been suggested that this bottle may have been hollowed out from a solid lump of glass rather than being mold-blown and then finished as was the normal method.  Presumably this suggestion is made because of the slight frosting effect on the interior surface, which implies that the bottle was not fully polished on the inside after it had been hollowed out.  This is a possibility but, while there are certainly a very small number of bottles that were made by this method, there is nothing specific to indicate that this example is part of that group.  Opacity can be caused by a number of techniques such as the addition of tin oxide or calcium fluoride to the flux or by causing abrasion to the interior surface.  When considering dating, however, this bottle is a good contender for an early eighteenth century date given its color imitating jadeite, which was highly prized at that time and listed as one of the colors in the Palace Archives of th e Qianlong period.  While carved monochrome examples are more prevalent in a ruby-red tone, it is rare to see such a fine example in green.

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