Yellow jadeite is extremely rare and must come from a very limited source. This bottle has an intriguing tiny speck of bright emerald-green right in the centre. It is part of the group of superbly made plain bottles which feature elegant form combined with exquisite hollowing through a wide neck.

Another very rare yellow jadeite snuff bottle is included in Snuff Bottles in the Collection of the National Palace Museum, Taipei, 1991, pl. 231.

Jadeite comes from a remote part of Burma, and first became a readily available material probably between 1784 and 1800, when relations between Burma and China improved with the opening up of regular trade. It is likely that bottles such as this and the following lot represent the earliest popular use of jadeite in China. With the Imperially inspired snuff-bottle craze at its height during the late eighteenth century, there can be no question that a striking new material arriving on the scene would promptly be carved into bottles. Porcelain bottles made to imitate jadeite during the Daoguang period attest to its well-established popularity; cf. the example from the J & J Collection illustrated by Moss et. al., The Art of the Chinese Snuff Bottle, no. 251.