Bottle ID: 130

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CARVED, CYLINDRICAL, GRAY WITH ARCHAIC BANDS

Date: 1750-1800

Height: 59 mm

Chalcedony, very well hollowed, of pale honey tone, of tapering cylindrical form with shoulders sloping to an everted mouth and with a neatly carved splayed footrim, carved continuously in relief with bands depicting archaic designs of confronting dragons, trefoil scrolls and petal lappets between rope twist borders, the bottle divided by mock mask and ring handles, the neck with a border of artemis leaves.

Imperial, attributed to the Palace Workshops, Beijing.

Similar Examples:

Crane Collection nos. 160 and 276
Moss, Hugh, Victor Graham and Ka Bo Tsang. A Treasury of Chinese Snuff Bottles - The Mary and George Bloch Collection, 1998, Vol. 2, Part 2, pp. 468-470, no. 354.
Moss, Hugh, Victor Graham and Ka Bo Tsang. The Art of the Chinese Snuff Bottle - The J & J Collection, 1993, Vol. I, p. 263, no. 165.
Hughes, Michael C. The Blair Bequest - Chinese Snuff Bottles from the Princeton University Art Museum, 2002, p. 66, no. 47.
Sotheby's, New York, September 14, 2010, lot 151, The Joe Grimberg Collection.

Provenance:

Clare Lawrence Ltd.

This small group of agate bottles is clearly linked to the group discussed under Crane 160, and each bottle serves to mutually enhance the other's imperial designation. There are a number of typical 'Palace' features on this bottle - the shape, the small size, and primarily its decorative features. Confronting dragons between archaic borders, the rope twist edges and the neck border of artemis leaves appear on both jade and glass bottles which we can attribute to the Palace Workshops. Interestingly the Bloch example with a slightly different design of chi dragons clearly resembles the decoration found on 18th century red overlay glass bottles made in the Palace.

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