1750-1800

Details

**A BUBBLE-SUFFUSED GREEN OVERLAY ON COLORLESS GLASS SNUFF BOTTLE
1750-1800
Of compressed form with flat lip and slightly concave oval foot, the emerald-green glass on a colorless ground, both layers heavily suffused with bubbles of varying sizes and decorated with random fine streaks and one teardrop-shaped area of dark reddish-brown, carnelian stopper with vinyl collar
2 29/64 in. (6.2 cm.) high

Provenance

Robert Hall, London.

Exhibited

Canadian Craft Museum, Vancouver, 1992.

Special notice

Prospective purchasers are advised that several countries prohibit the importation of property containing materials from endangered species, including but not limited to coral, ivory and tortoiseshell. Accordingly, prospective purchasers should familiarize themselves with relevant customs regulations prior to bidding if they intend to import this lot into another country.

Lot Essay

This bottle may be an uncarved green overlay on a colorless glass body; it is part of a group of glass snuff bottles with streaks of color and a heavily bubbled overlay produced in Beijing during the mid- to late Qianlong reign. See Moss, Graham and Tsang, A Treasury of Chinese Snuff Bottles, Vol. 5, Glass, nos. 977-79 and 983, where the authors discuss the use of contrasting layers of color for cameo-relief carvings that derives from the tradition of using the different depths of color in jade pebbles to create a design. The streaking in the glass, as here, is seen on many of the finest glass overlay carvings of the eighteenth century, and is considered a feature of the Palace glassworks of the Qianlong period.

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