Bottle ID: 692

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PLAIN

Date: 1750-1820

Height: 70.6 mm

Nephrite, of translucent, variegated spinach-green tone with black speckled inclusions, extremely well hollowed and of flattened ovoid form with shoulders sloping to a wide mouth, and with a neatly carved oval footrim.

Similar Examples:

Lawrence, Clare. Miniature Masterpieces from the Middle Kingdom - The Monimar Collection of Chinese Snuff Bottles, 1996, pp. 170-171, no. 79.166.
Moss, Hugh, Victor Graham and Ka Bo Tsang. The Art of the Chinese Snuff Bottle - The J & J Collection, 1993, Vol. I, p. 119, no. 57.
Hall Robert. Chinese Snuff Bottles IV, 1991, p. 34, no. 33.
Sotheby's, New York, September 14, 2010, lot 184, The Joe Grimberg Collection.

Provenance:

Hugh Moss [HK] Ltd.
Robert Kleiner & Co., May 2006
Private German Collection

Published:

JICSBS, Autumn 2006, back cover

This is one of a small group of spectacular spinach-green nephrite bottles which are extremely well hollowed, plain, and made from a distinctive material which was available to the Chinese from the Khotan region in pebble form from the rivers before mining of the darker, larger pieces of material used in bulk in the late eighteenth century. The colour is softer, and usually paler with less obvious black speckling. As a group they represent the cream of early spinach-green nephrite bottles and all are elegantly made, starkly plain, superbly detailed with crisp, confident carving of mouth, lip, and footrim. The wide mouth on this example suggests a mid-Qing date as such emphatically wide mouths on hardstone bottles seem to have been introduced no earlier than the mid-Qianlong period and became particularly fashionable during the late-Qianlong into the Daoguang period.

 

 

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