Bottle ID: 00685

< Previous page

RED RUBY, CARVED W/DRAGONS IN RAISED RELIEF

Date: 1730-1750

Height: 54 mm

Glass, of small rectangular form with rounded shoulders tapering to a slightly splayed neck and with a neatly carved footrim, of deep ruby-red tone, carved in relief with raised panels on each side, the front and reverse carved with confronting archaic panels surrounding a pearl; the sides also carved each with an archaic dragon.

Imperial, attributed to the Palace Workshops, Beijing. 

Similar Examples:

Crane Collection no. 145.
Crane Collection nos. 401, 402 and 305
Christie's, London, October 12, 1987, lot 38, The Dwyer Collection.
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. 342-343, no. 827.
Hidden Treasures of the Dragon.  Chinese Snuff Bottles from the Collections of Humphrey K. F. Hui, Margaret Polak and Christopher C. H. Sin.  Catalogue of an Exhibition held at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, 19 December 1991 to 27 January 1992, p. 14, no. 8.

Provenance:

Asian Art Studio
A Private Southern California Collection

Exhibited:

Annual Convention ICSBS Toronto, October 2007

The color, form and style of carving of this bottle all indicate an early date for manufacture and suggest the Palace Workshops as the place of manufacture.  The deeper color of ruby-red, derived from the use of colloidal gold, together with the bottle's small size helps to date it from as early as the Yongzheng period.  The shape of the bottle is also unusual and appears unique amongst its contempories in the treatment of the dragons on the side panels.  Stylistically, the raised relief carving of the dragons appears to pre-date the Qianlong period, appearing 'softer' amd less formalized than those of the late eighteenth century.

< Back to full list