.jpg?w=1)
.jpg?w=1)
.jpg?w=1)
.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
The flattened rounded milky-white glass bottle is delicately enamelled with a continuous design of a kingfisher perched on the branch of a shrub amidst blossoming peonies and asters, set between stylised floral and ruyi borders at the neck and around the base.
This type of translucent, milky-white glass was frequently used as an alternative to opaque white glass within the Palace Workshops and is ideally suited to the equally translucent enamels. A common characteristic of this particular glass is the appearance of a concentric circle of more transparent glass between layers of whiter, translucent material at the lip. One of the key features of enamels on glass from the Palace Workshops is the softness, translucency and delicacy of much of the palette, which allows for very subtle shading and gradations of colour. As a counterpoint, brilliant and opaque enamel colours are used on the formal borders and on the bird. Compare a snuff bottle in the Palace Museum, Beijing, possibly painted by the same hand with similar border at the neck, included in The Complete Collection of Treasures of the Palace Museum, Snuff Bottles, Hong Kong, 2003, p. 8, no. 9 (fig. 1). For another cylindrical bottle painted with similar birds, see the same publication, p. 5, no. 6.
Among the three media for enamelling produced at the Court- metal, ceramics and glass- glass is by far the rarest. Enameling on glass was notoriously difficult to master, as the melting temperatures of the glass vessel and the enamel pigments are dangerously close; the slightest fluctuation in kiln temperature risked deforming the bottle entirely, resulting in an exceptionally high failure rate. In general, production (although not echoed in snuff bottles) of porcelains was the most plentiful, followed by enamels on metal, and then glass, although the glass equivalents were never more than a tiny fraction of the overall output. In snuff bottles, enamel on metal predominates, followed by porcelain and, again, glass is the rarest. The present lot stands as a remarkably successful firing; the quality and style of this example suggest a date from early in the reign.
It seems certain that the same artists were employed to work on glass, metal and ceramics. The process of painting by mixing finely powdered glass with a liquid medium and firing at low temperatures was the same for all three media, and the materials, kilns and workshops were probably shared. Certainly subjects were repeated freely across the media. This bottle is closely related to another bottle from the J & J Collection, enamelled with pheasants and peonies on a copper body, and illustrated in Moss et. al. The Art of the Chinese Snuff Bottle, no. 177. The neck borders are similar as both are bird and flower designs against a white ground, and although the present lot is more linear- indeed the peonies are entirely outlined in the Chinese style, whereas the metal example is shaded more in the European manner- the brushwork is very similar, with the same well-trained and fluent lines dancing independently of what they are so successfully depicting. It is not inconceivable that they are by the same hand.
Apart from the delightful subject, drawn directly from the Chinese painting tradition of birds and flowers, this is one of the rare examples where there is practically no visible indication of Jesuit influence in the design, other than in the Europeanized, rococo borders. Compare a related bottle where the design was enamelled in a similar Chinese style, with a bird perched on a branch on one side and peony blossoms on the reverse, bearing a very similar Qianlong mark in blue enamel, formerly in the Mary and George Block Collection, sold at Bonhams Hong Kong, 28 May 2010, lot 132. Compare further a related glass bottle painted with egrets amidst lotus plants and decorated with similar borders at the neck and around base, formerly in the J & J Collection, sold at Christie’s Hong Kong, 7 October 2014, lot 18 (fig. 2).
This type of translucent, milky-white glass was frequently used as an alternative to opaque white glass within the Palace Workshops and is ideally suited to the equally translucent enamels. A common characteristic of this particular glass is the appearance of a concentric circle of more transparent glass between layers of whiter, translucent material at the lip. One of the key features of enamels on glass from the Palace Workshops is the softness, translucency and delicacy of much of the palette, which allows for very subtle shading and gradations of colour. As a counterpoint, brilliant and opaque enamel colours are used on the formal borders and on the bird. Compare a snuff bottle in the Palace Museum, Beijing, possibly painted by the same hand with similar border at the neck, included in The Complete Collection of Treasures of the Palace Museum, Snuff Bottles, Hong Kong, 2003, p. 8, no. 9 (fig. 1). For another cylindrical bottle painted with similar birds, see the same publication, p. 5, no. 6.
Among the three media for enamelling produced at the Court- metal, ceramics and glass- glass is by far the rarest. Enameling on glass was notoriously difficult to master, as the melting temperatures of the glass vessel and the enamel pigments are dangerously close; the slightest fluctuation in kiln temperature risked deforming the bottle entirely, resulting in an exceptionally high failure rate. In general, production (although not echoed in snuff bottles) of porcelains was the most plentiful, followed by enamels on metal, and then glass, although the glass equivalents were never more than a tiny fraction of the overall output. In snuff bottles, enamel on metal predominates, followed by porcelain and, again, glass is the rarest. The present lot stands as a remarkably successful firing; the quality and style of this example suggest a date from early in the reign.
It seems certain that the same artists were employed to work on glass, metal and ceramics. The process of painting by mixing finely powdered glass with a liquid medium and firing at low temperatures was the same for all three media, and the materials, kilns and workshops were probably shared. Certainly subjects were repeated freely across the media. This bottle is closely related to another bottle from the J & J Collection, enamelled with pheasants and peonies on a copper body, and illustrated in Moss et. al. The Art of the Chinese Snuff Bottle, no. 177. The neck borders are similar as both are bird and flower designs against a white ground, and although the present lot is more linear- indeed the peonies are entirely outlined in the Chinese style, whereas the metal example is shaded more in the European manner- the brushwork is very similar, with the same well-trained and fluent lines dancing independently of what they are so successfully depicting. It is not inconceivable that they are by the same hand.
Apart from the delightful subject, drawn directly from the Chinese painting tradition of birds and flowers, this is one of the rare examples where there is practically no visible indication of Jesuit influence in the design, other than in the Europeanized, rococo borders. Compare a related bottle where the design was enamelled in a similar Chinese style, with a bird perched on a branch on one side and peony blossoms on the reverse, bearing a very similar Qianlong mark in blue enamel, formerly in the Mary and George Block Collection, sold at Bonhams Hong Kong, 28 May 2010, lot 132. Compare further a related glass bottle painted with egrets amidst lotus plants and decorated with similar borders at the neck and around base, formerly in the J & J Collection, sold at Christie’s Hong Kong, 7 October 2014, lot 18 (fig. 2).