Live Auction 21256Rivers and Mountains Far from the World: Important Chinese Snuff Bottles from the Rachelle R. Holden Collection
A CARVED ROOT AMBER SNUFF BOTTLE
Lot 909

A CARVED ROOT AMBER SNUFF BOTTLE

1770-1850

Closed24 March 2022

Price Realised

USD 4,032

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A CARVED ROOT AMBER SNUFF BOTTLE
1770-1850
The bottle is of irregular form and is carved through the opaque yellow-ochre markings to the honey-tone ground with a pair of magpies perched on blossoming prunus branches bearing delicate buds.
2 3⁄8 in. (6 cm.) high, coral stopper

Sigurd Larsen.
Bob C. Stevens Collection, no. 703.
The Bob C. Stevens Collection of Fine and Important Chinese Snuff Bottles, Part II; Sotheby’s New York, 26 March 1982, lot 193.
Rachelle R. Holden Collection, New York.

Specialist note


One of the exotic materials used for snuff bottles, amber is the translucent fossilized resin of ancient coniferous trees from the Tertiary period. Three main varieties of amber were used: a range of transparent brown, golden-brown and reddish amber; a yellow, cloudy amber associated with the Baltic; and 'root amber', such as this bottle, where the range of material has inclusions of opaque yellow-ochre and brown colors. 'Root' amber, is so called because it was believed that the resin combines with clay at the root of the tree to obtain its color. However, it is more likely that the color is the result of a chemical process.

Amber was valued long before the snuff-bottle era and was considered to be a symbol of longevity, since it was known to have laid in the ground being transformed over a long period of time. It would have become a popular material for snuff bottles from very early in the development of the art-form.