A FOUR-COLOR-OVERLAY CLEAR GLASS SNUFF BOTTLE

IMPERIAL, PALACE WORKSHOPS, BEIJING, 1760-1820

Details

A FOUR-COLOR-OVERLAY CLEAR GLASS SNUFF BOTTLE
IMPERIAL, PALACE WORKSHOPS, BEIJING, 1760-1820
The bottle is carved through the transparent pale blue, yellow, pale blue-green and rose overlay to the translucent bubble-suffused ground with nine sinuous chilong, their heads turned back to form an oval or circular shape with their bodies and tails. The green chilong have black streaks running through the head and the body. The foot is formed by the long tail of the pale blue chilong.
2 3/8 in. (5.8 cm.) high, pink tourmaline stopper, pearl finial

Provenance

Belfont Company Ltd., Hong Kong, 1995.
Ruth and Carl Barron Collection, Belmont, Massachusetts, no. 1770.

Exhibited

Corning, New York, Corning Museum of Glass, 2007-2008.
Boston, International Chinese Snuff Bottle Society Convention, The Barron Collection, 23-26 September 2008.

Lot Essay

This bottle exhibits a standard overlay design of nine chilong or chi dragons that was used on glass snuff bottles at the height of the Qing dynasty. The imagery of nine dragons would have been considered auspicious.

For a related glass snuff bottle with six colors of overlay, and a discussion of this group, see Moss, Graham, Tsang, A Treasury of Chinese Snuff Bottles, the Mary and George Bloch Collection, Volume 5, Part 3, Hong Kong, 2002, pp. 631-632, no. 980.

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