Bottle ID: 717

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YELLOW, IMPERIAL, MEIPING

Date: 1750-1800

Height: 54 mm

Glass, of even yellow tone of tapering cylindrical form, with shoulders sloping to a cylindrical neck with everted mouth, carved in relief with a band of lingzhi encircling the shoulders, above eight convex vertical panels with a line of bosses, the base with a border of lotus petals.
Together with its original matching stopper.
Imperial, attributed to the Palace Workshops, Beijing.

Similar Examples:

The Crane Collection, nos. 160 and 272
Moss, Hugh, Victor Graham and Ka Bo Tsang. The Art of the Chinese Snuff Bottle - The J & J Collection, 1993, Vol. II, p. 585, no. 350.

Provenance:

Vincent Fraysse, Paris, France, December 15, 2015, lot 54
Jacques Servier, Paris, France
Viviane Jutheau, 1984
John Ford, Baltimore, MD, 1982
Edward Choate O'Dell

Published:
 

John Gilmore Ford. Chinese Snuff Bottles; The Edward Choate O'Dell Collection, The Asia House Gallery, NYC, November 1982, no. 109

 

This elegant yellow glass bottle provides a fascinating link to production in the imperial workshops in the eighteenth century. The majority of bottles from this group, which have been given an imperial attribution are produced in either glass imitating aquamarine or chalcedony. This example is unique in that it is manufactured from opaque yellow glass, a color reserved for use at the time by only the emperor and his family (extending to imperial princes and their concubines). A further connection to the Palace is given by the chalcedony example in this collection, no. 160 which has a plethora of imperially designated marks, a date (1783) and a poem which directly relates the bottle to the emperor for his own personal use. With these two unique bottles in the Crane Collection and a more standard  example of the glass imitating aquamarine type, the attribution to the Palace Workshops for all three examples can be made with confidence. That this example in yellow glass also still carries its original matching stopper is an additional pleasing feature.

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