A RARE Cinnabar-Red Overlay Black Glass Snuff Bottle, Qing Dynasty, 18th/19th C.
Snuff Bottles
$1,250
- Material
- Glass
- Color
- Multi-Color
- Origin
- China
- Age / Period
- 1800-1849
- Dimensions
- Height: 2.03 inches (5.2cm), not including the stopper, Width: 1.68 inches (4.3cm), Thickness: 0.94 inches (2.3cm)
- Condition
- Estate / Pre-owned
This is a very fine, bulbous, circular form Snuff Bottle with a round neck, rounded sloping shoulders, and flat footing. Made of very dark, black colored glass. It has ++cinnabar-red splashes++on both sides that resemble stylized plants. The bottle has very thin walls and is very light. It has a very smooth and lustrous surface. A very similar bottle that was part of the Mary and George Block collection (see photo #9), was sold at Sotheby's Hong Kong, on 26 Mary 2014 for 40,000 HKD (Approx: $5,125). Below are the comments that the auctioneer made of this bottle. ++"Glass with inclusions of other colours++ at the surface was among the easiest to produce and seems to have been, not unnaturally, a popular standard from the early eighteenth century to the end of the Qing dynasty. To achieve these effects, the glassblower collects a gather of one colour on the blow-iron and, during the manipulation process, lays cold fragments of another colour on the marvering surface, simply rolling the gather across them. This can then be re-heated to completely blend them together, and whatever pattern is created can then be further manipulated as the gather is blown, allowing for the surface design to be twisted and stretched as required. In this case, cinnabar- or lacquer-red glass has been rolled deeply into the gather and integrated by blowing. The single splash of cinnabar-red on each main side results in what appears to be a true opaque black where it meets the green ground. It is possible that one way of achieving opaque black was by mixing the two colours." <br /> For other examples with cinnabar-red splashes in a dark green ground, possibly from the same workshop, see Lawrence 1995, no. 122, which features the same distinctive, streaky marking in the red, and Christie's, New York, 21 March 2000, lot 108. The outstanding bottle is in remarkable preserved condition. Bottle Measurements Bottle Measurements Height: 2.03 inches (5.2cm), not including the stopper Width: 1.68 inches (4.3cm) Thickness: 0.94 inches (2.3cm) <br /> Weight: 0.8 ounces A similar bottle, that was part of the Rachelle H. Holden Collection, was sold at Christies, on 22 March 2022 for $21,420. See photo #10.