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Lot Essay
There is a wide range of glass, particularly popular with the snuff-bottle maker, which imitated realgar. Realgar is the least toxic of all arsenic compounds but it tends to break down on long exposure to sunlight and eventually disintegrates to a fine powder. It is the fifth basic element to the Chinese and played an important role for the alchemist, for whom it symbolized longevity and immortality.
The present bottle is superbly made, with excellent carving and integrity of form. The abstract markings suggest the heart of a blazing fire in which everything is transformed. This is particularly appropriate for the Daoist alchemist attempting to transform base metal into gold and limited existence into immortality as metaphors for the transformation of human consciousness.
This bottle is one of only three known non-enamelled glass bottles which bear a Guyue Xuan mark. The other two glass bottles are a green meiping-shaped example in the collection of Mary and George Bloch, and a white glass bottle illustrated by Robert Hall, Chinese Snuff Bottles, no. 41.
In 1767 the Jian Yuan was completed in the Changchun Yuan complex, a series of Imperial gardens to the West of Beijing adjoining the Yuanming Yuan, known collectively as the Summer Palace. One of the halls within the Jian Yuan was the Guyue Xuan (Ancient Moon Pavilion). The Changchun Yuan was intended as a retirement home for the Qianlong Emperor, although he never took up full-time residence there. The Guyue Xuan was completed, therefore, in 1767, prompting the Emperor to order a group of wares for that particular pavilion which appears to have been mostly in enamel on glass. See Peter Y. K. Lam, 'Studio Marks in Imperial and Court Related Snuff Bottles', The Imperial Connection. Court Related Chinese Snuff Bottles. The Humphrey K. F. Hui Collection, pp. 33-34.
For a realgar glass bottle still in the Imperial Collection, see Masterpieces of Snuff Bottles in the Palace Museum, Beijing, 1995, p. 82, no. 58. For a series of five realgar glass bottles of various types, in The Victoria and Albert Museum, in bequests from 1901-1936, see H. White, Snuff Bottles from China, London, 1992, pl. 63.
The present bottle is superbly made, with excellent carving and integrity of form. The abstract markings suggest the heart of a blazing fire in which everything is transformed. This is particularly appropriate for the Daoist alchemist attempting to transform base metal into gold and limited existence into immortality as metaphors for the transformation of human consciousness.
This bottle is one of only three known non-enamelled glass bottles which bear a Guyue Xuan mark. The other two glass bottles are a green meiping-shaped example in the collection of Mary and George Bloch, and a white glass bottle illustrated by Robert Hall, Chinese Snuff Bottles, no. 41.
In 1767 the Jian Yuan was completed in the Changchun Yuan complex, a series of Imperial gardens to the West of Beijing adjoining the Yuanming Yuan, known collectively as the Summer Palace. One of the halls within the Jian Yuan was the Guyue Xuan (Ancient Moon Pavilion). The Changchun Yuan was intended as a retirement home for the Qianlong Emperor, although he never took up full-time residence there. The Guyue Xuan was completed, therefore, in 1767, prompting the Emperor to order a group of wares for that particular pavilion which appears to have been mostly in enamel on glass. See Peter Y. K. Lam, 'Studio Marks in Imperial and Court Related Snuff Bottles', The Imperial Connection. Court Related Chinese Snuff Bottles. The Humphrey K. F. Hui Collection, pp. 33-34.
For a realgar glass bottle still in the Imperial Collection, see Masterpieces of Snuff Bottles in the Palace Museum, Beijing, 1995, p. 82, no. 58. For a series of five realgar glass bottles of various types, in The Victoria and Albert Museum, in bequests from 1901-1936, see H. White, Snuff Bottles from China, London, 1992, pl. 63.