The Meriem Collection Part II. Lot 258

258
**A BUBBLE-SUFFUSED GREEN OVERLAY ON COLORLESS GLASS SNUFF BOTTLE
1750-1800
Of compressed form with flat lip and slightly concave oval foot, the emerald-green glass on a colorless ground, both layers heavily suffused with bubbles of varying sizes and decorated with random fine streaks and one teardrop-shaped area of dark reddishbrown, carnelian stopper with vinyl collar
6.2 cm. high
$1,000-1,500

P R O V E N A N C E :
Robert Hall, London.

E X H I B I T E D :
Canadian Craft Museum, Vancouver, 1992.

This bottle may be an uncarved green overlay on a colorless glass body; it is part of a group of glass snuff bottles with streaks of color and a heavily bubbled overlay produced in Beijing during the mid- to late Qianlong reign. See Moss, Graham and Tsang, A Treasury of Chinese Snuff Bottles, Vol. 5, Glass, nos. 977-79 and 983, where the authors discuss the use of contrasting layers of color for cameo-relief carvings that derives from the tradition of using the different depths of color in jade pebbles to create a design. The streaking in the glass, as here, is seen on many of the finest glass overlay carvings of the eighteenth century, and is considered a feature of the Palace glassworks of the Qianlong period.

The Meriem Collection Part II. Lot 258