Bottle ID: 00387

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RED RUBY, CARVED W/STYLIZED DESIGN OF LINGZHI FUNGUS

Date: 1730-1750

Height: 57 mm

 

Glass, deep ruby-red tone, of squat bulbous 'foliate' form, carved on the front and reverse in low relief with a stylized design of lingzhi fungus in imitation of ruyi scepter heads surrounding a central circular panel, the neck finishing with a wide mouth.
Imperial, attributed to the Palace Workshops, Beijing.

 

Similar Examples:

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. 336-337, no. 823.
Moss, Hugh, Victor Graham and Ka Bo Tsang.  A Treasury of Chinese Snuff Bottles - The Mary and George Bloch Collection, 1995, pp. 234-237, no. 96.
Sotheby Parke Bernet [Hong Kong] Ltd., November 2, 1978, lot 42, The Arthur Gadsby Collection.
Chinese Snuff Bottles: Catalogue of an exhibition, Hong Kong Museum of Art, 15 Oct.- 26 Nov. 1977.

 

Provenance:

Clare Lawrence Ltd.

 

Exhibited:
 

Annual Convention ICSBS Toronto, October 2007

 

 

 

Eighteenth century ruby-red glass made in the Imperial workshops used colloidal gold in its manufacturing process to produce the color shown in this bottle.  Shi Meiguang and Zhou Fenzheng (1993) were able to analyze the main fluxes of glass objects in the Palace Museum, Beijing.  Through spectral analysis of red glass from the Yongzheng and Qianlong periods in the Museum, it was found that the basis of the color is the selective light dispersion of the gold particles in the glass.  The amount of gold that needs to be present is a very small amount - 0.01 percent of the total composition.

In the Palace records, gold-derived red glass is listed as lianghong (bright red).  The gold itself came in the form of gold-leaf.  In 1752, an inventory of the Palace glassworks listed amongst other materials "three measures of top quality gold- leaf for mixing with glass".  Emily Byrne Curtis states that by 1820, this technology had been taken up by the glassworks at Boshan and from there, at some point before the Guangxu period, by the Guangzhou glass industry.  Logically, this also means that the commercial glassworks in Beijing had the ability to produce ruby-red glass, in all likelihood, well before the Boshan glassworks due to their proximity to the Palace workshops.  The Court frequently employed skilled workers from one area of the country to another and it would have been natural for the latest technology to be passed from one glass manufacturer to another.

 

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