A FINE AND RARE CARVED AMBER BOTTLE

1740-1820

Details

A FINE AND RARE CARVED AMBER BOTTLE
1740-1820
Of bulbous, lobed melon form, the semi-transparent material carved with a butterfly, cricket and beetle on leafy tendrils, stopper
2 3/8in. (6.2cm.) high

Provenance

George Raphael Collection.
Hilda Somers Collection, acquired in 1945.

Exhibited

Chinese Snuff Bottles, Taipei Gallery, New York, October 1993, p. 7.

Lot Essay

Early amber bottles in good condition are relatively rare, because of the fragility of the material. Apart from being in fine condition, this is also one of the best-known, naturalistically carved, early amber bottles.

For another amber fruit-shaped bottle of equally high quality, still in the Imperial Collection, see Chang Lin-sheng, Snuff Bottles in the Collection of the National Palace Museum, Taipei, 1991, p. 259, no. 338.

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