English
中文
Bottle ID: 00313
YELLOW IMPERIAL, OCTAGONAL W/CONCAVE MAIN PANELS
Date: 1700-1750
Height: 41 mm
Glass, of octagonal faceted form with two raised circular panels on the front and reverse, the inner panel forming an integral concave dish, the straight neck ending in a wide mouth, of slightly streaked opaque yellow tone.
Imperial, attributed to the Palace Workshops, Beijing.
Similar Examples:
Crane Collection no. 57.
Moss, Hugh, Victor Graham and Ka Bo Tsang. A Treasury of Chinese Snuff Bottles - The Mary and George Bloch Collection, 2002, Part 2, pp. 310-311, no. 810.
Sotheby's, Hong Kong, October 28, 1993, lot 1014, The Collection of Eric Young, Part IV.
Provenance:
Hugh Moss [HK] Ltd.
Exhibited:
Annual Convention ICSBS Toronto, October 2007
The majority of faceted glass bottles have either rounded convex panels on the main fascias (such as in the Sotheby's example above), or faceted panels. This fascinating example is one of the very few with concave main panels. Snuff bottle folklore tells us that bottles were designed in this way to provide an integral snuff dish so that snuff could be scooped from the bottle, placed onto the concave panel and offered to someone from there. Snuff-taking was a very social habit and this would have avoided the clumsiness of carrying around a separate dish in the Court (as anyone who has tried to carry a plate, a wine-glass and then eat with a fork at a cocktail party would attest!).