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Lot Essay
The present bowl is a very rare example made by the Imperial glassworks at the Qing court during the Yongzheng period, and it appears to be the only glass example bearing a Yongzheng fanggu mark.
The Imperial glassworks were set up under the directorship of Kilian Stumpf, the Bavarian Jesuit, in the Imperial City in Beijing in 1696 and continued in production, although with some changes in locations and interruptions, to the end of the dynasty. Apart from a plethora of snuff bottles, a range of other wares was also produced, including optical lenses, chandeliers, food and drinking vessels. Despite continuous production from 1696 to the end of the Yongzheng period in 1722, reign-marked glass works from this period are extremely rare.
The shape of the present bowl is modelled after a Tibetan butter tea bowl, which was traditionally made of wood, and occasionally lined with tin or silver. The Qing Court adopted the shape into different mediums, including glass, and other combined materials such as a burlwood-inset, gilt and enamelled silver bowl in the current sale, lot 3025. The colour of the present bowl suggests that it was probably reserved for the use of the Emperor, or other high-ranking members of the imperial household, possibly during a Buddhist ritual where it would have served as a ‘Pure Water Bowl’.
The present bowl is mentioned by Emily Byrne Curtis in ‘Chinese Glasswares with Arabic Inscriptions: A Study of Some Examples Dated to the 18th Century’, National Palace Museum Bulletin, vol. 46, December 2013, Taipei, p. 55-56, where the author attributes the production to the imperial glass workshops while citing a pair of Yongzheng-marked Arabic-inscribed blue glass vases in the Victoria & Albert Museum (accession numbers: nos. 120 & 120B, 1883) for comparison.
The Imperial glassworks were set up under the directorship of Kilian Stumpf, the Bavarian Jesuit, in the Imperial City in Beijing in 1696 and continued in production, although with some changes in locations and interruptions, to the end of the dynasty. Apart from a plethora of snuff bottles, a range of other wares was also produced, including optical lenses, chandeliers, food and drinking vessels. Despite continuous production from 1696 to the end of the Yongzheng period in 1722, reign-marked glass works from this period are extremely rare.
The shape of the present bowl is modelled after a Tibetan butter tea bowl, which was traditionally made of wood, and occasionally lined with tin or silver. The Qing Court adopted the shape into different mediums, including glass, and other combined materials such as a burlwood-inset, gilt and enamelled silver bowl in the current sale, lot 3025. The colour of the present bowl suggests that it was probably reserved for the use of the Emperor, or other high-ranking members of the imperial household, possibly during a Buddhist ritual where it would have served as a ‘Pure Water Bowl’.
The present bowl is mentioned by Emily Byrne Curtis in ‘Chinese Glasswares with Arabic Inscriptions: A Study of Some Examples Dated to the 18th Century’, National Palace Museum Bulletin, vol. 46, December 2013, Taipei, p. 55-56, where the author attributes the production to the imperial glass workshops while citing a pair of Yongzheng-marked Arabic-inscribed blue glass vases in the Victoria & Albert Museum (accession numbers: nos. 120 & 120B, 1883) for comparison.