TWO OVERLAY GLASS SNUFF BOTTLES

YANGZHOU SCHOOL, 1860-1890

Details

TWO OVERLAY GLASS SNUFF BOTTLES
YANGZHOU SCHOOL, 1860-1890
The first, dated 1882, is a rare six-color bottle with translucent overlay of purple, green, amber, blue, and red carved through to the opaque white ground on one side with three boys at play and a seal reading renwu (1882), the reverse decorated with a scene of a cat, bats, root vegetables, a ruyi scepter and flowering branches in vases, all between mask-and-ring handles on the narrow sides. The second bottle, 1860-1890, is carved through the translucent green overlay to the opaque white ground with a long-tailed bird perched on a branch of bamboo and inscribed Xiaomei zuo, the reverse shows a river scene with a single figure in a boat, with a seal reading zheng ke ('just right').
2 3/8 and 2 ½ in. (6 and 6.4 cm.) high, glass stoppers

Provenance

The first bottle:
Robert Kleiner, London, 2003.
Ruth and Carl Barron Collection, Belmont, Massachusetts, no. 3760.
The second bottle:
Richard Law Collection.
Ruth and Carl Barron Collection, Belmont, Massachusetts, no. 5146.

Brought to you by

Margaret Gristina

mgristina@christies.com +1 212 636 2180

Lot Essay

It is unusual to find a bottle bearing the name Xiaomei, which was the sobriquet of Wang Su (1794-1877), a prominent literatus and painter from the Yangzhou area. His name appears on a small group of bottles from the Li Junting School, including one in the Bloch Collection (Moss, Graham, Tsang, A Treasury of Chinese Snuff Bottles, Vol. 5, Glass, no. 1046, where the connection between Li and the School is explored).

Other examples with his name include one from the Mack Collection illustrated in R. Kleiner, Precious Playthings: Important Chinese Snuff Bottles from the Mack Collection, no. 34, and one from The Ruth and Carl Barron Collection, Part I; Christie's New York, 16 September 2015, lot 227.

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