Bottle ID: 213

< Previous page

SILHOUETTE, BAT IN CLOUDS

Date: 1750-1860

Height: 60 mm

Agate, very well hollowed, of rounded ovoid form with a slightly concave foot, the honey colored stone with dark gray and orange inclusions depicting a lone bat swooping through the clouds.

Similar Examples:

Lawrence, Clare. Miniature Masterpieces from the Middle Kingdom - The Monimar Collection of Chinese Snuff Bottles, 1996, pp. 128-129, no. 59.163.
Lawrence, Clare. The Thewlis Collection of Chinese Snuff Bottles, 1990, p. 14, no. 9.
Chen, Jennifer. Bottles of Delight: The Thal Collection of Chinese Snuff Bottles, 1998, p. 49, no. 19.

Provenance:

Hugh Moss [HK] Ltd.

This is one of the magical group of silhouette chalcedony and agate bottles where the design is entirely natural within the material and where no surface editing has been required to bring it out. It is also one of the more powerfully evocative of the group, with a very clear bat-like shape swooping through the clouds, creating swirling vortices of great energy and giving the bottle an extraordinary dynamism. The use of the stone’s color is very dramatic with its tones of light brown, honey-orange and darker inclusions forming the silhouette of the bat.

< Back to full list