Bottle ID: 00306

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RED OPAQUE, OVOID W/CARVED FLOWERS, FRUIT & PLANTS

Date: 1750-1795

Height: 60 mm

Glass, of elongated flattened ovoid form, the shoulders tapering to a wide mouth and slightly everted lip; the raspberry-red blown glass carved with a continuous design of flowers, fruits and plants including bamboo, peach sprigs, lingzhi, prunus and lotus growing from rockwork.

Possibly Imperial, possibly attributed to the Palace Workshops, Beijing.

Similar Examples:

Provenance:

Clare Lawrence Ltd.
The Kenneth Hark Collection, Florida

Exhibited:

Annual Convention ICSBS Toronto, October 2007

Throughout the eighteenth century there was a continual cross-fertilization of ideas due to the movement of workers to Beijing from glassmaking areas such as Boshan and Guangzhou.  While these workers brought with them the techniques and knowledge acquired outside the Palace, at the Imperial workshops in Yangxin Hall, they were artistically subjected to the restrictions imposed by the Court.  This manifests itself predominantly in the choice of subject matter, shape and style with the Palace Workshops typically producing wares with classical archaistic designs seen on bronzes and ceramics.  Wares produced elsewhere in southern China tended to depict naturalistic subject matters portraying the environment in which the pieces were made, although these workers must have returned to their native provinces taking with them the classical influence of the Court.  This glass bottle then is somewhat of an anomaly with its unusual color, unique style of carving and the apparent lack of extant examples.  Despite all of this, the bottle is of a stunning and vibrant color and carved in a manner more consistent with the top jade carvers of the time.  A tentative attribution to the Palace Workshops has been made on the basis of information provided in the Palace Archives, that in the fourth year of Jiaqing (1799), there were thirty-four additional workers in the glasshouse, including jade workers who were finishing the snuff bottle blanks.

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