Bottle ID: 00652

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CLEAR W/BUBBLES, BLUE, GREEN & RED OVERLAY, SUN, PHOENIX & FLOWERS

Date: 1750-1800

Height: 54 mm

Glass, of rectangular form with rounded shoulders tapering to a long neck, overlaid with swirly green, ruby-red and pale blue over a bubbly ground and carved in heavy relief with on one side the sun rising in scrolling clouds, beside a phoenix perched on rocks with lingzhi fungus, and continuing to the other side with flowering peonies and lingzhi.

Similar Examples:

Chang Lin-sheng.  Snuff Bottles in the Collection of the National Palace Museum, Taipei, Taiwan, 1991, p. 226, no. 309.
Sotheby's, London, June 7, 1990, lot 247.
Hui, Humphrey K. F. and Christopher C. H. Sin.  An Imperial Qing Tradition - Chinese Snuff Bottles from the Collection of Humphrey K. F. Hui and Christopher C. H. Sin, 1994, p. 125, no. 156.

Provenance:

Robert Hall
Private Californian Collection
Bob C. Stevens

Exhibited:

Annual Convention ICSBS Toronto, October 2007
An Exhibition of Chinese Snuff Bottles & Dishes from the Bob C. Stevens Collection, Mikimoto Hall, Tokyo, 22-31 October, 1978

 

 

Published:

Catalogue of an exhibition of Chinese Snuff Bottles & Dishes from the Bob C. Stevens Collection, Mikimoto Hall, Tokyo, 22-31 October, 1978, p. 34, no. 54.
Stevens, Bob C.  The Collector's Book of Snuff Bottles, 1976, p. 71, no. 218

 

At first glance, this glass bottle appears to be very busy and visually confusing.  Yet it is a stunning piece of carving with a particularly effective contrast between the strong red color of the sun and the pale green and blue colors of the phoenix and flowers.  Since the sun was a potent male symbol and the phoenix emblematic of the female, often used to symbolize the empress, it is clear that this bottle has hidden layers of meaning relating to the balance of yin and yang.  Peonies were symbolic of wealth and rising in the ranks and lingzhi fungus represented immortality; both of these plants are often depicted with the phoenix and the sun, since the phoenix was born out of the sun.

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