Bottle ID: 0099

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SILHOUETTE, FARMER

Date: 1750-1860

Height: 50 mm

 

Agate, very well hollowed, of small flattened squared form with rounded shoulders and a neatly carved footrim, the honey colored stone with dark brown inclusions, minimally polished on one side to depict a farmer standing leaning on his stick and brushing the flies from his face with a fly-whisk, a worker bent double by his side with a hoe on his back, their facial features carved, the side with an inclusion resembling a bag of grain.

 

Similar Examples:

Moss, Hugh, Victor Graham and Ka Bo Tsang. The Art of the Chinese Snuff Bottle - The J & J Collection, 1993, Vol. I, p. 215, no.128 and p. 217, no. 130.
Moss, Hugh M. Chinese Snuff Bottles of the Silica or Quartz Group, 1971, p. 42, no. 103.
Low, Denis S. K. Chinese Snuff Bottles from the Sanctum of Enlightened Respect III, 2007, p. 273, no. 238.

 

Provenance:

Clare Lawrence Ltd.
The Thewlis Collection
Mr. and Mrs. Yglesias, London, England

 

 

Published:
 

Lawrence, Clare. The Thewlis Collection of Chinese Snuff Bottles, 1990, p. 13, no. 7
Moss, Hugh M. Chinese Snuff Bottles of the Silica or Quartz Group, 1971, p. 43, no. 105

 

 

The term ‘eyeball’ agate, as oppose to the gemologist’s term of ‘eye’ agate, was coined in the seventies, by Hugh Moss, is specific to snuff bottle collectors and does not refer to the same type of agate, but to agate bottles with smaller concentric rings suggestive of the eye of the subject matter, usually fish or birds, occasionally horses or even human figures. In this example the design is very clear although the silhouette has been achieved by a minimal amount of polishing to the edges of the design.

 

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