Lot 1165
Treasury 5, no.761 (‘Crimson Snow’)
HK$10,000

Transparent ruby-red and colourless glass suffused with air bubbles, some elongated, and white fragments; well hollowed, with a flat lip and recessed, slightly uneven flat foot surrounded by a protruding flattened foot rim
1760-1880
Height: 4.3 cm
Mouth/lip: 0.45/1.05 and 0.95 cm. (oval)
Stopper: coral; turquoise-enamelled silver collar

Provenance:
Eric Young
Sotheby’s, London, 13 October 1987, lot 37

Published:
Treasury 5, no.761

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

This bottle is unquestionably carved from a solid block, yet it contains a mass of elongated air bubbles, most prominently in the red layer but also in the snowstorm ground. Elongated bubbles are one sign of a blown vessel, but they are not a reliable indicator. Evidence that they are not the result of the blowing process here lies in the fact that they are orientated in different directions in the two colours of glass, those in the red all running diagonally and parallel to one another. Had the bottle been blown, they would all emanate from the energy of the blow iron and fan outwards. When pouring a block of glass, it is possible to stretch the air bubbles simply by stretching the still-malleable glass into a particular shape (a rectangle, for instance) or by stretching a layer of one colour across the surface of another in order to create a thin, contrasting plane. This seems to have been the case here, where the red overlay was obviously stretched onto the colourless ground, leaving a series of diagonally placed elongated air bubbles.

Other indications identify it as having been carved from a solid block. It is of a typically lapidary, rounded-rectangular form (although the same form could, of course, be achieved by blowing into a mould), and the deep foot and hollowed-out interior are obviously the work of the lapidary. This is all confirmed by the bottom of the interior hollowing, where obvious traces of the original annular drilling to remove the first columns of glass at the beginning of the process can be clearly seen. There would be no need for this work had the bottle been blown, since there would already be an air bubble inside. The lapidary might wish to polish it, or even edit the shape, but he would not need to employ an annular drill for either process. A final indication lies in the placing of the layer of red overlay. It would be possible to blow a bottle to leave a red overlay on one side only, but most unlikely that it would have ended up with the red cutting in a straight line across the lip of the bottle.

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.