Lot 1141
Treasury 5, no.744 (‘Moulded Longevity’)
HK$8,125

Transparent amber-brown glass with a few scattered air bubbles of various sizes; with a flat lip and slightly recessed flat foot surrounded by a protruding flat foot rim; with a moulded formalized shou (‘longevity’) character on each main side
1740-1890
Height: 4.9 cm
Mouth/lip: 0.80/1.43 cm
Stopper: chalcedony; gilt-silver collar

Provenance:
Hugh M. Moss Ltd., Hong Kong (2000)

Published:
Treasury 5, no.744

This bottle was clearly made with a mould. Vertical lines running up the narrow sides, where the two halves of the mould joined, are obvious, and the rounded contours of the relief design are typical of a mould impression. The lapidary seems to have confined his attention mainly to the carving of neck and lip, as well as the slightly recessed foot, where a shallow foot rim has been left. The rest of the surface appears to be a natural fire-polish simply touched up a little in places. There are areas in the design that have clearly not been subjected to the attentions of the lapidary, where slight surface lines picked up from the flow of glass into the mould remain visible.

In dating a bottle of this kind we run up against the problem of its rarity depriving us of direct comparisons. One similar example is recorded, apparently from the same mould, in the Arthur Gadsby Collection (JICSBS, December 1978, p. 22, fig 14). Although the brown glass is typical of that produced during the early years of the imperial glassworks, there is an absence of crizzling, which tends to rule out very early production at court. Otherwise, however, there is little to go on. There is a tendency in the case of a mould-blown bottle of this sort, with its relative lack of clarity in design, to see it as somewhat degenerate, assigning it to late snuff-bottle production when cheap mass-production might have become acceptable. But if that were the case, where are all the others that were similarly mass-produced? It is just as likely to come from early snuff-bottle production, when private glassworks were perhaps experimenting with different methods of production. Occasionally one finds an intriguing equivalent to this, in which the moulded shou design is, mysteriously, on the inside rather than the outside. A seemingly impossible task, this is in reality no more than a simple glassmaker’s trick, explained under Sale 6, lot 209.

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.