Lot 1160
Treasury 5, no.800 (‘Perfection in a Gourd’)
HK$150,000

Translucent turquoise-blue glass; with a flat lip and protruding flat foot; the double-gourd form multi-faceted
Attributable to the imperial glassworks, Beijing, 1700-1770
Height: 5.38 cm
Mouth/lip: 0.58/1.90 cm
Stopper: turquoise; gilt-silver collar

Provenance:
Universal Antiques & Fine Arts Co. Ltd., Taipei (1999)
Hugh M. Moss Ltd., Hong Kong (2000)

Published:
Treasury 5, no.800

This bottle represents a straightforward and relatively unsophisticated approach to the faceted double-gourd form; it lacks the slight compression so commonly found in snuff-bottle shapes and its surface is faceted symmetrically, like a gemstone. Nevertheless, it is aesthetically satisfying and one of the most spectacular of all known palace-faceted snuff bottles, its rare and lovely colour being combined with masterly and formally faultless carving superimposed upon a wonderfully elegant shape. The evenness of the faceting and the complete confidence it embodies set the standard for high-quality eighteenth-century faceting.

It has been blown, almost certainly into a mould, but there is an absence of any interior echo of the faceting that would indicate a faceted mould. That distinguishes it from Sale 2, lot 23, where the shape of the mould is reflected inside. Internal lighting on this bottle reveals that the glass at its thickest where the facets meet; conversely, the centre of each facet is of very thin glass, leading us to wonder how many bottles of this sort were destroyed by cutting just a little too deeply to make the facets.

The lovely turquoise-blue colour, which further enhances the overall appeal of this bottle, was neither one of the colours introduced by the Jesuits nor one developed by the Chinese in their subsequent glass renaissance. This very bright, gem-like turquoise existed as a native glass as early as the fourteenth century and would have been one of the colours produced at Boshan prior to the production of snuff bottles, or indeed the Manchus who fostered them.

The genuine turquoise stopper demonstrates how perfectly glass could be made to imitate the semi-precious stone and suggests the likelihood that the entire bottle may have been made to imitate turquoise.

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.