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Bottle ID: 00503
WHITE W/FIVE COLOR OVERLAY, DRAGONS
Date: 1740-1820
Height: 54 mm
Glass, of flattened ovoid form, with sloping shoulders and a wide mouth, overlaid with five colors - pale yellow, pale turquoise, ruby-red, sapphire-blue, and olive-green streaked with brown, on a snow-white ground and carved on front and reverse with two kui dragons encircling a yin yang symbol, the sides each with a single kui dragon, and with a neatly carved footrim.
Imperial, attributed to the Palace Workshops, Beijing.
Similar Examples:
Hall, Robert. Chinese Snuff Bottles, 1987, pp. 88-89, no. 44.
Sotheby's, Hong Kong, October 28, 1993, Important Chinese Snuff Bottles from the Collection of Eric Young, Part IV, lot 1041.
Provenance:
Hugh Moss [HK] Ltd.
C. K. Liang Private Collection, Hong Kong, November 2003
Exhibited:
Annual Convention ICSBS Toronto, October 2007
This is one of a distinctive group of multi-colored glass overlays probably dating from the Qianlong period. They are always dramatically carved, with delicately colored "thin" overlays, typically with streaked olive-green, along with the other colors used here. There can be no doubt that the school also produced carvings in more conventional colors as well, since this crisp style also occurs in a range of single-colored overlays. The formal style of the kui dragons lends itself to an Imperial attribution, as does the high quality of the carving and the use of a yin yang symbol as the central roundel rather than the more typical shou medallion.
This group of bottles exhibits certain characteristics indicative of an experimental group. Despite the high quality of the carving on this example, it is clear that there is ash from the furnace in some of the overlay colors, though not in the ground color. The control of the glass on the sides of the bottle is not as good as it is on the front and reverse, as the ground color breaks into the overlay color giving it an irregular appearance.