For a discussion of the construction of such snail or conch-shaped bottles, see H. Moss, V. Graham and K. B. Tsang, The Art of the Chinese Snuff Bottle, The J & J Collection , vol. 1, no. 258, pp.428-429, where the authors illustrated a Daoguang example bearing the mark of the unrecorded Yixing potter, Gao Jinyuan. 'Yixing stoneware is usually worked in a leathery state, when it is ideally malleable. A bottle of this type would probably be made up of a rolled sheet of material, wrapped around on itself and joined with slip... The final stage would be to sharpen up all the details with a carving tool, which would be entirely responsible for the flesh of the mollusc drawn up inside its shell, and for smoothing out the join lines and surfaces. Then seals would be impressed, and the whole thing fired'. The authors continue that Yixing stoneware 'also acquired, probably more through association with its tea-making properties than on any scientific basis, the reputation for keeping snuff fresh and in peak condition. This reputation may have been a factor in the considerable output of Yixing snuff bottles during the nineteenth century'.
Cf. also the Yixing group of two snails by the 17th/18th century potter Chen Mingyuan, illustrated by K. S. Lo, The Stonewares of Yixing from the Ming Period to the Present Day, fig.160, p.231; a snail snuff bottle with a stamped seal of Mingyuan was sold in our New York Rooms, 2 June 1994, lot 449