1760-1840

The nine rivets decorating this unusual bottle are of the type traditionally used in China to repair large ceramic vessels that were broken or cracked. The Chinese word for such rivets is liuding. One possible reading of this design of nine rivets (jiuding) is a wish for male progeny. Nine (jiu) is the ultimate male number in Chinese mythology and also shares the same pronunciation as the Chinese word for "eternity," while the definition of one character for ding is "male adult." It has also been suggested that the subject would have recalled for the cultivated literati the ceremonial nine tripods (jiuding) of King Yu (founder of China's first dynasty, the Xia, around 2200 BC), and would have implied a subtle protest against the "barbarian," non-Chinese Manchu rulers of the Qing dynasty, and a wish for the return to a "Golden Age" of honorable rule under the true Han Chinese.
A small group of these glass bottles is known, and was probably made for a short period of time during the mid-Qing period. A similar bottle from the collection of Bob Stevens was illustrated in Chinese Snuff Bottles and Dishes, no. 56, and sold at Sotheby's, Honolulu, 7 November 1981, lot 26. Another example was sold at Sotheby's, London, 24 April 1989, lot 23. The present bottle certainly ranks among the finest of the group. The starkness of the design is enhanced by the rarely used black overlay while the simplicity of the rivets contrasts nicely with the finely carved mask-and-ring handles.