Lot 50
Treasury 5, no. 734 (‘Purple Rain’)
HK$23,750

Transparent purple glass sandwiched between layers of opalescent, slightly milky glass, with scattered air bubbles of various sizes, some elongated; with a flat lip and concave foot
1730-1840
Height: 7.15 cm
Mouth/lip: 0.56/1.19 cm
Stopper: jadeite; vinyl collar

Provenance:
Y. F. Yang (1977)
Belfort Collection (1986)

Published:
Distance, April-May 1979, p. 38
Jutheau 1980, p. 74
Kleiner 1995, no. 137
Treasury 5, no. 734

Exhibited:
L’Arcade Chaumet, Paris, Brussels, and Amsterdam, June - August 1982
British Museum, London, June-October 1995
Israel Museum, Jerusalem, July-November 1997

Although the majority of sandwiched glass may have been blown into a limited number of standard forms, the technique itself remained independent of this range of convenient and practical moulds. In common with lot 166 in this sale, its more unusual form notwithstanding, this was probably mould-blown, although no obvious signs of a mould remain. Another of the rarer shapes among the genre, it is also one possessing particular elegance. It is ideally matched with a simple yet very well distributed series of purple splashes, like giant raindrops, picked up on the inner layer as dabs or small fragments of powdered glass, then elongated by the blowing process. It is evident that the blown vessel has not been twisted on the blow-iron, since the elongations of the coloured inclusions are all stretched in the same direction, away from the blow-iron. The sole hint of twisting is evident where the constrictions of the neck have shifted some of the markings into a marginally diagonal pattern.

This is not the Sotheby’s sale catalogue. This is a product of Hugh Moss for the purposes of this website. For the catalogue details please refer to Sotheby’s website or request a copy of a printed sale catalogue from Sotheby’s.