A GREEN AND CINNABAR OVERLAY OPAQUE WHITE GLASS BOTTLE

1750-1820, YANGZHOU SEAL SCHOOL

Details

A GREEN AND CINNABAR OVERLAY OPAQUE WHITE GLASS BOTTLE
1750-1820, Yangzhou Seal School
Of flattened pear shape, carved in a continuous scene through overlays of dark green and rust red with a pine tree to one side and a butterfly above two cranes, one holding a lingzhi, the other near bamboo below a crescent moon, one narrow side with a monkey seated on rockwork waving a stick at a beehive, a small bee buzzing around his head, stopper
26in. (5.5cm.) high

Provenance

Robert Hall, London, 1995

Lot Essay

The crane and the pine can form the rebus fenghou, "to rise in rank".
For another strikingly similar example, also using cinnabar and green over on opaque white ground with a pine landscape and similar crescent moon, but depicting an immortal, other figures and a tiger, see Hugh Moss, Victor Graham and Ka Bo Tsang, The Art of the Chinese Snuff Bottle, The J & J Collection, Tokyo, 1993, p. 638, no. 389.

For another example see Robert Kleiner, Chinese Snuff Bottles, A Miniature Art from the Collection of Mary and George Bloch, Hong Kong, 1994, p. 178, no. 123.

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