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Lot Essay
Sapphire-blue glass was among the first colors for snuff bottles produced by the Imperial glassworks after its inception in 1696, although the earlier products from the Palace tend to be crizzled with some suffering from glass disease arising from an improper chemical mix.
For Imperial Qianlong bottles of this general form, which seems to have been a popular Palace shape of the eighteenth century, see Snuff Bottles of the Ch'ing Dynasty, Hong Kong Museum of Art, 1978, p. 67, no. 61 (with a Qianlong mark) and no. 62 (in yellow glass made as a basket of flowers). An identical sapphire-blue glass bottle, formerly from the Blanche B. Exstein Collection, was sold in these rooms, 21 March 2002, lot 3. See also an aventurine-glass bottle with similar shape illustrated in Moss, Graham and Tsang, A Treasury of Chinese Snuff Bottles, Vol. 5, Glass, no. 766.
For Imperial Qianlong bottles of this general form, which seems to have been a popular Palace shape of the eighteenth century, see Snuff Bottles of the Ch'ing Dynasty, Hong Kong Museum of Art, 1978, p. 67, no. 61 (with a Qianlong mark) and no. 62 (in yellow glass made as a basket of flowers). An identical sapphire-blue glass bottle, formerly from the Blanche B. Exstein Collection, was sold in these rooms, 21 March 2002, lot 3. See also an aventurine-glass bottle with similar shape illustrated in Moss, Graham and Tsang, A Treasury of Chinese Snuff Bottles, Vol. 5, Glass, no. 766.