Bottle ID: 416

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CARVED, WITH HANDLES

Date: 1760-1840

Height: 63 mm

Amethyst, well-hollowed, of flattened rectangular form tapering towards the shoulders, with an oval neck and with a neatly carved oval footrim, carved to accommodate the natural flaws in the material with a rustic scene concentrated on one main side of the bottle with a small country home set beneath a towering pine tree and another tree beneath it, the narrow sides with mock mask and elongated ring handles.

Similar Examples:

Crane Collection no. 385 (citrine).
Crane Collection no. 713 (crystal).
Lilla S. Perry. Chinese Snuff Bottles: The Adventures & Studies of a Collector, 1960, p. 58, no. 30.
Sotheby's, Hong Kong, October 30, 2000, lot 669, The Guo'an Collection.
Christie's, New York, March 21, 2002, lot 144, The Blanche B. Exstein Collection.

Provenance:

Hugh Moss [HK] Ltd.
Sotheby's, New York, March, 22, 1999, lot 220
The North Carolina Museum of Art

The workshop of the Rustic Crystal Master produced a series of amethyst bottles among its much larger production of crystal and this is one of the finest examples, of lovely color, with the walls of the bottle kept thick enough to maximize it, and typical carving for the workshop. It is intriguing to see how the artist has included the apparently blank main side of the bottle in the design of the other side by extending a far rocky shore in the upper left of the main design into the mask handle, to take the eye around to the other main side, where a similar rocky shore is carved on the opposite edge, thus suggesting that the lovely and flaw-free purple colour of that side is an expanse of water and part of the landscape.

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