Bottle ID: 397

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BERYL, CARVED KYLIN UNDER A TREE

Date: 1750-1850

Height: 57 mm

Beryl, of flattened rectangular form, with a neatly carved footrim, well hollowed and carved in low relief with a kylin resting on an overhanging rock, beneath a fruit tree, a swooping bird flying above, the reverse uncarved.
Possibly imperial, attributed to the Palace Workshops, Beijing.

 

Similar Examples:

Crane Collection no. 340
Stevens, Bob C. The Collector's Book of Snuff Bottles, 1976, pp. 170-171, no. 636
Moss, Hugh, Victor Graham and Ka Bo Tsang. A Treasury of Chinese Snuff Bottles - The Mary and George Bloch Collection, 1998, Vol. 3, pp. 122-125, no. 413.
Sotheby's, New York, October 25, 1997, lot 160.
Sotheby's, New York, September 14, 2010, lot 152, The Joe Grimberg Collection.

 

Provenance:

Robert Kleiner
Sotheby's, New York, October 25, 1997, lot 208
Gerry P. Mack

Published:

Robert Kleiner & Co., Ltd., 1999, p. 12, no. 31

Beryl is a silicate mineral which occurs in the rock as hexagonal crystals of varying sizes. Pure beryl is colorless, but is usually tinted by impurities to produce a range of colors of green (emerald and heliodor), blue (aquamarine), yellow (golden beryl), red (red beryl and morganite) and white (goshenite). The present bottle is part of a small groupf of bottles of similar color and with similar carving, although there are a small number which ar eof this shape but which have been left plain. By virtue of their shape, quality and subject matter, these bottles are now thought to be imperial, though whether they were made within the Forbidden City, or at imperial workshops around the country, is unclear.

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