Bottle ID: 113

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BANDED, SMALL BULBOUS

Date: 1750-1860

Height: 59 mm

Agate, superbly hollowed, of flattened squared form with rounded shoulders and a neatly carved footrim, the honey colored body concentrically encircled with a broad white band, the upper section of opaque caramel tone.

Possibly imperial, attributed to the Palace Workshops, Beijing.

Similar Examples:

Crane Collection no. 276
Crane Collection no. 199
Lawrence, Clare. Miniature Masterpieces from the Middle Kingdom - The Monimar Collection of Chinese Snuff Bottles, 1996, pp. 120-121, no. 54.126.
Nicollier, Verene. The Baur Collection Geneva, Chinese Snuff Bottles, 2007, pp. 288-289, no. H128.
Kleiner, Robert. Chinese Snuff Bottles - The White Wings Collection, 1997, p. 159, no. 106.

Provenance:

Clare Lawrence Ltd.

Agate is a banded, multi-colored variety of chalcedony. It occurs in a boundless amount of colors and patterns and, as such, no two agate bottles will ever be identical. As a stone, the extraordinary beauty and uniqueness of agate was responsible for its great popularity with collectors from the eighteenth century onwards. In the rock it forms in rounded nodules, which must be sliced open to reveal the hidden internal patterns.

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