TWO GLASS SNUFF BOTTLES

1780-1880

Details

TWO GLASS SNUFF BOTTLES
1780-1880
The first, 1780-1860, is of flattened ovoid form and is carved through the opaque blackish-blue and translucent pale blue overlay to the bubble-suffused mottled white ground with prunus branches reserved on a 'cracked-ice' ground. The second, Yangzhou School, 1800-1880, is an opaque black glass bottle and of elongated ovoid form and carved on the narrow sides with mask and ring handles.
2 5/16 and 2 3/8 in. (6, 6.1 cm.) high, malachite and coral stoppers (2)

Provenance

Black glass bottle: Litchfield Auction, CT, 30 July 1983.

Lot Essay

The first bottle, with a rare design of prunus on 'cracked ice', exhibits a dense 'snowstorm' ground that suggests a dating early in the 19th century.
The elegant black bottle is carved with mask and ring handles that are typical of the 19th-century production of the glassmaking workshops at Yangzhou and associated with the patrons Li Yunting and Li Junting. For a discussion of this type see Moss and Sargent, "The World in a Bottle in the World at the End of the Qing Empire, Part II: Yangzhou Overlay Glass, Journal of the International Snuff Bottle Society, Baltimore, Spring 2011, pp. 22-9.

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