Bottle ID: 00038

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CLEAR W/BLUE OVERLAY, FAN-TAILED CARP

Date: 1750-1800

Height: 55 mm

Glass, of flattened rounded shape, overlaid in a slightly opaque sapphire-blue on clear, carved in heavy relief on front and reverse with a fan-tailed carp swimming above frothy waves, the sides with mock mask and ring handles, all resting on a neatly carved footrim.

Imperial, attributed to the Palace Workshops, Beijing.

Similar Examples:

Masterpieces of Chinese Snuff Bottles in the National Palace Museum, Taiwan, 1976, no. 5.
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, p. 491,   no. 905.
Stevens, Bob C.  The Collector's Book of Snuff Bottles, 1976, p. 69, no. 200.

Provenance:

Clare Lawrence Ltd.
Hugh Moss [HK] Ltd.

Exhibited:

Annual Convention ICSBS Toronto, October 2007

The second half of the Qianlong period saw a development both in terms of quality and quantity of glass snuff bottles produced in the Palace Workshops.  This bottle is one of a group of overlays of either red on clear glass or blue on clear glass, often carved with fish or aquatic scenes.  While a number of blue overlay on clear glas s bottles exhibit the phenomenon of 'crizzling' and in all likelihood can be placed in the first half of the eighteenth century, this example with its crisp carving is more likely to have been produced in the second half of the century.  The overlay color on this bottle is slightly opaque and of a sapphire-blue rather than the cobalt-blue of the earlier bottles.  The design is more formal, lacking the freedom shown on earlier bottles but exhibits the same surface detail and well-rounded, almost sculptural carving.

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