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Bottle ID: 00116
RED RUBY (RASPBERRY), FLASK SHAPE, CARVED W/DRAGONS
Date: 1745-1795
Height: 53 mm
Glass, of flattened rounded form, the shoulders ascending to a wide mouth, of raspberry-red color, carved on each side in low relief with confronted archaistic dragons, the sides with mock mask and ring handles, and with a neatly carved footrim.
Imperial, attributed to the Palace Workshops, Beijing.
Similar Examples:
Sotheby's, New York, September 15, 1998, lot 49, The Neil W. and Frances R. Hunter Collection.
Kleiner, Robert. Chinese Snuff Bottles - The White Wings Collection, 1997, p. 82, no. 50.
Provenance:
Clare Lawrence Ltd.
Christie's, Hong Kong, October, 1991, lot 1115
The Mary and George Bloch Collection
Joseph Baruch Silver
Exhibited:
Annual Convention ICSBS Toronto, October 2007
The group of 'red' color tones listed in the Palace Archives includes the following: red, bright red, transparent red, pink and golden red. The first listing for 'pink' occurs in 1744 when some glass scholars' objects - a vase, a brush-washer in sea-shell form and a flower holder in lingzhi fungus form, were ordered to be sent to the carpentry workshop to have matching stands made for them. The following year in 1745, sixty snuff bottles in 'various colors' were ordered to be made for the Duanyang Festival. This bottle with its classic design of archaistic confronted dragons has all the attributes of a Palace Workshop bottle. Pairs of dragons indicated happiness in marriage and they were often joined at the top and bottom as these dragons are, to symbolize eternal happiness. Often stylized dragons were depicted in the shape of a shou medallion signifying longevity and while this does not occur on this bottle, it is no accident that the central recessed area forms the shape of a stylized lingzhi fungus head, itself symbolic of immortality.