Bottle ID: 509

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TWO DRAGONS WITH MOVING PEARL

Date: 1770-1860

Height: 53 mm

Amethyst of pale purple color with a natural bubble of air trapped in water in an elongated fissure within the stone; of irregular ovoid form carved in relief with two chi dragons, the fissure placed between them so that the bubble acts as a flaming-pearl moving between them when the bottle is tipped.

Similar Examples:

Qiu Donglian, Zhongguo gudai biyanhu mulu, China: Nanfang chubanshe, 2002, p. 169.

Provenance:

Hugh Moss [HK] Ltd.
Jana Volf
The Chinese Porcelain Co.
The Fernhill Park Collection [The Hon. Irene Austin]

Published:

The Chinese Porcelain Co. Chinese Snuff Bottles from The Fernhill Park Collection, 1991, no. 166
JICSBS, Winter 1999, p. 10, fig. 9

Zhao Zhiqian wrote the earliest complete book on snuff bottles in the 1860s which was translated with commentary by Professor Richard Lynn. In the body of the main work is the following reference, under the heading of crystal:

There is a ‘moon spirit’ (yuepo) type that has beads of water trapped inside it that can move up and down.

Here we have an unambiguous reference to precisely this sort of material. Today this bottle is of an extremely rare material, but Zhao’s passing reference suggests that perhaps he had seen more than one. Only one other survives, however in Qiu Donglian, Zhongguo gudai biyanhu mulu, China: Nanfang chubanshe, 2000, p. 169, bottom left. It is obviously from the same source of material and made by the same hand and with the same clever device of having the moving bubble as a pearl floating between two dragons. There are also a few objects other than snuff bottles with trapped bubbles of air, however mostly in agate not crystal.

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