A SUPERB THREE-COLOUR OVERLAY MILKY GLASS SNUFF BOTTLE
A SUPERB THREE-COLOUR OVERLAY MILKY GLASS SNUFF BOTTLE

Details
A SUPERB THREE-COLOUR OVERLAY MILKY GLASS SNUFF BOTTLE
1730-1780

Well carved through the olive-green overlay with a pheasant in bamboo on one side and a frog on a lotus leaf amidst aquatic plants on the other, with a further lotus leaf covering the base of the bottle acting as a naturalistic foot and linking the two sides, all on a bubble-suffused milky ground, the features of the bird and frog highlighted with russet swirls, stopper
2 7/16 in. (6.2 cm.) high
Provenance
Hugh Moss
Literature
Snuff Bottles of the Ch'ing Dynasty, p. 76, no. 88
JICSBS, December 1978, p. 33, fig. 88
100 Selected Chinese Snuff Bottles from the J & J Collection, back cover and no. 41
Gazeta de l'Antiquaire, June-July 1988, p. 7
Moss et. al., The Art of the Chinese Snuff Bottle, The J & J Collection, vol. 2, no. 371
Arts of Asia, November-December 1998, p. 82, fig. 27
Exhibited
Hugh M. Moss Ltd., London, September 1974.
Hong Kong Museum of Art, October-December 1978.
Christie's London, October 1987
Christie's New York, 1993
Empress Place Museum, Singapore, 1994
Museum fur Kunsthandwerk, Frankfurt, 1996-1997
Percival David Foundation of Chinese Art, London, 1997
Naples Museum of Art, Florida, 2001 - 2002
Portland Museum of Art, Portland, Oregon, 2002
National Museum of History, Taipei, 2002
International Asian Art Fair, Seventh Regiment Armory, New York, 2003
Poly Art Museum, Beijing, 2003

Lot Essay

This bottle is one of the masterpieces of the medium, with impeccable formal integrity, superb relief carving, perfect distinction between relief and ground planes, and an excellent finish. These characteristics are further enhanced by the emphasis given by the red details of the upper layer of the overlay, which are subtly used in a very unusual manner.

There is another fine early bottle with a closely related design in red overlay, which may be by the same workshops, in Chinese Snuff Bottles from the Pamela R. Lessing Friedman Collection, no. 16. Other bottles which are similar in subject-matter, style of carving and in the use of a double overlay of moss-green and cinnabar-red, include an example illustrated by John Gilmore Ford, Chinese Snuff Bottles. The Edward Choate O'Dell Collection, no. 128; and another from the collection of Mrs. John Sheafe Douglas, illustrated in Chinese Snuff Bottles and Jade Carvings from the Douglas, Gnam and Other Collections, no. 20.

It is debateable whether this bottle really qualifies as a double overlay or whether the red is simply another colour swirled into the green overlay and used in the carving. Strictly speaking, a double overlay has two distinct layers superimposed on a separate ground colour, whereas the additional colour here is included in parts on the same plane as the first overlay. Regardless of what category it is placed in, this bottle is superb.

For an identical subject in lavender-blue glass, undoubtedly by the same hand, see A Treasury of Chinese Snuff Bottles, Vol. 5, no. 853.

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