IMPERIAL GLASSWORKS, BEIJING, 1700-1800

Details

TWO FACETED GLASS SNUFF BOTTLES
IMPERIAL GLASSWORKS, BEIJING, 1700-1800
The first, 1700-1760, is an opaque yellow glass bottle of tapering ovoid form and raised on a circular, flat foot. The body is carved with eight vertical facets set between recessed circular bands surrounding the shoulder and foot. The second, 1720-1800, is of opaque milky white glass and carved with raised elongated ovoid panels on the sides below the rounded shoulders and cylindrical neck.
2½ and 2 1/8 in. (6.4 and 5.4 cm.) high, jadeite stoppers (2)

Provenance

Yellow glass bottle:
Arthur Loveless Collection.
Kardos Collection; Sotheby's New York, 1 July 1985, lot 42.
White glass bottle:
Eric Young Collection.
Bob Stevens Collection (Part I); Sotheby Parke Bernet Honolulu, 7 November 1981, lot 4.
Robert Kleiner, London, 1990.

Exhibited

White glass bottle: Exhibition of Chinese Snuff Bottles from the Bob C. Stevens Collection, Mikimoto Hall, Tokyo, October 1978, p. 13, col. pl. 6.

Special notice

Items which contain rubies or jadeite originating in Burma (Myanmar) may not be imported into the U.S. As a convenience to our bidders, we have marked these lots with Y. Please be advised that a purchaser¹s inability to import any such item into the U.S. or any other country shall not constitute grounds for non-payment or cancellation of the sale. With respect to items that contain any other types of gemstones originating in Burma (e.g., sapphires), such items may be imported into the U.S., provided that the gemstones have been mounted or incorporated into jewellery outside of Burma and provided that the setting is not of a temporary nature (e.g., a string).

Lot Essay

While faceted forms of Near Eastern metalwork were copied in porcelain by the Chinese as early as the 15th century, the technique of faceting glass gained popularity at the Imperial Glassworks in the Kangxi period. It was promoted by Kilian Stumpf and became a standard imperial method of decorating glass, particularly duirng the first half of the Qing dynasty. The wide mouth of the yellow bottle is suggestive of an early date, probably from the Kangxi to the early Qianlong reign. The white bottle is an unusual form in the repertoire of the Imperial Glassworks. An Imperial yellow bottle of the same shape is illustrated by Hugh Moss in Snuff Bottles of China, London, 1971, p. 105, no. 186.

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