Lot 1167
Treasury 5, no.999 (‘A Dash of Cinnabar’)
HK$81,250

Transparent emerald-green glass, opaque cinnabar-red glass, and colourless glass suffused with tiny white flakes and a few small air bubbles; with a flat lip and recessed, slightly convex foot surrounded by a protruding rounded foot rim; carved as a double overlay with a continuous design of a fenghuang on a rocky ground from which bamboo and orchids grow, with a bee flying nearby
1770-1840
Height: 5.7 cm
Mouth/lip: 0.65/1.49 cm
Stopper: jadeite; silver collar

Provenance:
Private collection
Sotheby’s, London, 7 June 1990, lot 99

Published:
Kleiner, Yang, and Shangraw 1994, no. 123
Treasury 5, no.999

Exhibited:
Hong Kong Museum of Art, March-June 1994
National Museum, Singapore, November 1994-February 1995

This highly effective combination of cinnabar red and emerald green was seen in the lovely bottle, with a fenghuang in a rather similar colour combination, in the J & J Collection (Moss, Graham, and Tsang 1993, no. 374). The combination of colours occurs into the nineteenth century, and a much closer parallel to this one, also found in the J & J Collection (ibid., no. 389), would appear to come from the same glassmaker – designer – carver team. Another clearly from the same hand is in Rachelle R. Holden 1994, no. 108 and is of similar colours, decorated with orchids in a painterly style. Apart from its similar form, it displays the same very dense snowflake ground, which we have associated with the mid-Qing period from the late Qianlong into the early nineteenth century (see under Sale 6, lot 243).

The carving is, again, more rudimentary than that found in the masterpieces of the early to mid-Qianlong period. This is demonstrated principally by the uneven ground plane, although in this case the relief carving is superbly controlled and extremely imaginative artistically. The upper layer of red, were it not obviously a superimposed layer sitting only on the surface of the emerald-green, might be considered streaking rather than a second layer of overlay. It provides an immensely dynamic thrust to the bird, which is as impressive and unusual a depiction of this mythical creature as any in the medium. Strangely, its head and neck are concentrated on one narrow side and at the base, the entire main side being taken up by an enormously long, exaggeratedly sweeping tail, which projects across the bottle to curl onto the other main side. The effect is disconcerting, but subtly involves the observer, since only by picking up the bottle and turning it in the hand is it possible to understand and fully appreciate the design. Even then, careful examination is necessary in order to savour the details, since the red and green blend into each other along the length of the bird and are then confused by other splashes of surface red in the ground and even on the foot rim. When the design suddenly leaps into focus, however, it has a truly dramatic strength.

It is matched on the other main side by one of the loveliest depictions of orchids in the medium, displaying the fluidity of genuinely fine brush work. Kleiner dated this bottle very precisely to the Daoguang period, and while it may come from the first half of that reign, it may also have been made a little earlier. We do not yet know when certain transitions in style and standards took place, for although the sequence may sometimes be obvious, the same is rarely true of the chronology.

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.