Bottle ID: 00393

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CARAMEL W/FIVE COLOR OVERLAY, CRANE & BATS W/LANDSCAPE

Date: 1800-1850

Height: 57 mm

Glass, of flattened rounded form, sloping to a slightly everted neck, the opaque caramel colored body overlaid with five colors - clear dark green, opaque pink, opaque turquoise, opaque yellow and rose pink, carved with a continuous design, on one side with a crane carrying a tally flying in the clouds above a sun rising from the foaming waves, a bat in flight to one side; the reverse with two further bats in the clouds below a crescent moon, a palace rising from the waves beside serrated rockwork and lingzhi fungus; the shoulders encircled by a mantle of billowing clouds.
Attributed to Yangzhou.

Similar Examples:

Moss, Hugh, Victor Graham and Ka Bo Tsang.  A Treasury of Chinese Snuff Bottles - The Mary and George Bloch Collection, 2002, Vol. 5, Part 3, p. 712, no. 1017.
Moss, Hugh, Victor Graham and Ka Bo Tsang.  A Treasury of Chinese Snuff Bottles - The George and Mary Bloch Collection, p. 706, no. 1014.
Stevens, Bob C.  The Collector's Book of Snuff Bottles, 1976, p. 69, no. 217.

Provenance:

Clare Lawrence Ltd. 
The Monimar Collection
Clare Lawrence Ltd.
Sotheby's, New York, September 22, 1995, lot 46
Montclair Art Museum, New Jersey
Mrs. Roy E. Tomlinson, Montclair, New Jersey

 

Exhibited:

Annual Convention ICSBS Toronto, October 2007

Published:

JICSBS, Autumn 2004, Front and Back Cover 
JICSBS, Summer 1997, p. 10, figs. 20 and 21
Lawrence, Clare.  Miniature Masterpieces from the Middle Kingdom - The Monimar Collection of Chinese Snuff Bottles, 1996, pp. 276-277, no. 132.222

 

 

The very top levels of Yangzhou School bottles are represented by three main groups.  The group of double and triple overlay glass bottles are well represented in this Collection, considering how few of them exist in private or public collections today (see Nos. 909 and 910 for stellar examples of the triple overlay group).  The second category, known as the 'silkworm' group, is also rare and is represented by single or multi-colored overlays usually on an opaque pink ground with yellow, white and green overlay colors.  The third group is embodied in this five colored overlay example shown here carved on a pale caramel color ground.  Unusually it has been carved using the combined techniques of multi-colored overlaying and multiple overlays in double and triple layers. 
"Multi-colored" refers to different colored glass which lies on the same plane, while "multiple" refers to layers of different colored glass, one on top of the other.  However, to find both techniques used on one bottle successfully is remarkable.  If the sun is examined in cross-section, one can see that it is overlaid in rose-pink over caramel over green on the caramel ground.  The combinations of multiple and multi-colored overlays is rare and this bottle belongs to the third group with delicate shades of green, caramel and rose pink, with the three pastel shades of opaque pink, turquoise and yellow   added.  It is as though the glassmaker had decided that this is the example on which he will show all his accomplishments and has designed this most complex yet beautiful of bottles. 
A crane is depicted as a symbol of longevity, flying towards a heavenly palace rising from the waves with bats flying amidst the clouds.  The rock, along with the waves and the bats form a rebus 'shoushan fuhai' meaning 'May your life be as immortal as that of the Southern Mountains and your happiness as vast as the Eastern Sea'.  The rising sun and the crescent moon symbolize the saying 'risheng yueheng' meaning 'the sun rise; the moon is forever there' - a further wish for everlasting life.

 

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