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Bottle ID: 00129
SNOWFLAKE W/RED OVERLAY, SEAL SCHOOL, CRANES
Date: 1780-1850
Height: 58 mm
Glass, of rounded form, carved using the clear red overlay on a snowflake ground, with on one side a pavilion and bridge beneath a tree, two birds in flight overhead, the reverse with two cranes perched on rocks, one holding a sprig of lingzhi fungus, a bat in flight above; the sides carved with bamboo and gnarled pine trees.
Attributed to Yangzhou.
Similar Examples:
The Crane Collection, nos. 155 and 910.
Sotheby's, New York, September 14, 2010, lot 109, The Joe Grimberg Collection.
Provenance:
Clare Lawrence Ltd.
Pete Bozzo
Exhibited:
Annual Convention ICSBS Toronto, October 2007
The Crane Collection has three of only four documented red overlay on snowflake ground glass bottles attributed to the Yangzhou School. All of them are of the highest quality in terms of both carving and design. In terms of other colors, examples exist on a clear or snowflake ground, however, in all cases the overlay colors are well-recorded within this School, whether they are single or multi-colored overlay examples. An examination of the author's database of Yangzhou bottles indicates that less than 10% are carved on a clear ground. The three bottles in the Crane Collection serve to emphasize that glass-making could not have occurred in Yangzhou and that the commercial lapidaries must have had glass brought in from other glass manufacturing regions of China, such as Boshan. A comparison of both the snowflake glass and the red overlay color with similar glass bottles attributed to Beijing allows a dating to include the latter part of the eighteenth century. Only one bottle has come to light from the Yangzhou School where the red overlay is on a clear or snowflake glass ground and which bears a cyclical date. Formerly in the Kardos Collection and then in the Collection of Joe Grimberg, this bottle was exhibited at the ICSBS convention in Vancouver in 1977 and is also illustrated in the catalogue of that exhibition. Its inscription reads:
"Beautiful ladies are as harmful as tigers"
"Curio of Yunting"
and dated with a cyclical date corresponding to 1879.
On the Grimberg bottle, the subject matter is closely linked to the inscription. On the strength of its physical properties, it could be dated 1750-1850. Similar to the three Crane bottles in type of glass, form, and with the same wide mouth, they are all stylistically akin to each other. The use of 'Yunting' as a name is intriguing. It is clear that 'Yunting' appears to be the initial owner of the bottle. Hugh Moss makes the argument that this may be an alternate usage of Li Junting's name or that perhaps one of his family members owned the bottle. Whoever the recipient was it is likely that these bottles can be attributed to Li Junting.